# WEG 2018 no bid from UK :-(



## Ciss (18 November 2011)

From an FEI press release just sent out: 'Austria now joins Australia, Canada, Hungary, Morocco, Russia, Sweden and the USA in the bid to host the FEI World Equestrian Games 2018. A decision will be announced after the Spring Bureau meeting in early 2013 as the third and final phase in the new bidding process that the FEI has put in place for the FEI World Equestrian Games and FEI European Championships.'

Come on UK/BEF where are you in all this list. Not much 'building on the legacy of 2012' in eveidence here -- unlike Athletics where Lord Coe managed to secure the 2017 Atheltics World Games for London.

Intertia / risk avoidance rules again I'm afraid <sigh>


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## Rambo (18 November 2011)

Subtle difference between athletics and equestrianism though....at least athletic actually HAS a legacy from 2012. 

The sad fact is there is nowhere in the UK that could host a WEG in 2017... :-(


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## Faithkat (18 November 2011)

Rambo said:



			Subtle difference between athletics and equestrianism though....at least athletic actually HAS a legacy from 2012. 

The sad fact is there is nowhere in the UK that could host a WEG in 2017... :-(
		
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So true and just goes to reinforce the total waste of £42 million that is being spent on the very temporary facililties for the 2012 Olympics.  I would have thought that a permanent facility could have been built for that kind of money.  The Olympics could have been a wonderful opportunity for the UK to have a world class equestrian legacy but  . . . . .


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## Ciss (18 November 2011)

Rambo said:



			. 

The sad fact is there is nowhere in the UK that could host a WEG in 2017... :-(
		
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In fact there is a misconception that it all has to be on one site so I am sure that something could be put together using venues for eventing /  edurance / carraige driving that are not too far from a dressage / showjumping / vaulting one.

This is actually what the French are doing in 2014 so it is possible if the powers that be got their mind around it - and the transportable facilities being developed for 2012 would probably still be usable at that time so there is a legacy that could be built on, even in the most practical terms.


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## perfect11s (19 November 2011)

Ciss said:



			In fact there is a misconception that it all has to be on one site so I am sure that something could be put together using venues for eventing /  edurance / carraige driving that are not too far from a dressage / showjumping / vaulting one.

This is actually what the French are doing in 2014 so it is possible if the powers that be got their mind around it - and the transportable facilities being developed for 2012 would probably still be usable at that time so there is a legacy that could be built on, even in the most practical terms.
		
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 Maybe but its not great if you want spectators , as most will want  to see  more than one disapline,   for instance there are only about 4 places in the UK with a suitable surface for Reining  sussex, cambs,somerset,and notts .... and its doubtfull they would have the huge  spectator capacity needed... sad as one of the main equestian nations we havent got a  world class venue ....


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## Hen (22 November 2011)

perfect11s said:



			Maybe but its not great if you want spectators , as most will want  to see  more than one disapline,   for instance there are only about 4 places in the UK with a suitable surface for Reining  sussex, cambs,somerset,and notts .... and its doubtfull they would have the huge  spectator capacity needed... sad as one of the main equestian nations we havent got a  world class venue ....
		
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My understanding is that different disciplines at previous WEGs are often held in different places around the host country? We were spoiled in Kentucky having everything so well co-located. And many European venues manage to lay effective temporary surfaces for different equestrian disciplines, even for reining - Americana for one, Aachen also, I think. It is a shame that the UK hasn't stepped up.


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## cefyl (24 November 2011)

Faithkat said:



			So true and just goes to reinforce the total waste of £42 million that is being spent on the very temporary facililties for the 2012 Olympics.  I would have thought that a permanent facility could have been built for that kind of money.  The Olympics could have been a wonderful opportunity for the UK to have a world class equestrian legacy but  . . . . .
		
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Typical apathy of the heads of UK equestrian sport to kowtow to Coe et al.  What a missed opportunity to create even a basic infrasctucture on which to showcases Britain as an equine nation.  Like someone says it would not even have to be capable of holding all the diciplines for events such as WEG.  Financial crisis in the UK and yet they have £42 million to literally throw away.  Disgusting.


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## Honey08 (24 November 2011)

cefyl said:



			Typical apathy of the heads of UK equestrian sport to kowtow to Coe et al.  What a missed opportunity to create even a basic infrasctucture on which to showcases Britain as an equine nation.  Like someone says it would not even have to be capable of holding all the diciplines for events such as WEG.  Financial crisis in the UK and yet they have £42 million to literally throw away.  Disgusting.
		
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It is disgusting. 

Much as I'd love to see the WEG in this country, I think we've enough on our plates debt wise - let some other country have the stress of it, and we shouldn't be bidding for football or anything else until we're financially sounder.


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## perfect11s (24 November 2011)

Honey08 said:



			It is disgusting. 

Much as I'd love to see the WEG in this country, I think we've enough on our plates debt wise - let some other country have the stress of it, and we shouldn't be bidding for football or anything else until we're financially sounder.
		
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Yes I aggree to a point, however some things are a good investment due to the money they bring in  so its not always a negative ... a WEG would be fantastic in the uk esp if it got us a world class equestian venue...


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## hcm88 (24 November 2011)

After the Olympics hosting WEG isn't going to be a big negative foot in the economy. I think it's a shame, we've got the best teams in the world and aren't even offering a bid to host. We have got good venues - yes they may be a travel apart but in reality the UK is much smaller than other countries, you'll probably travel max 2 hours between events. I believe people would be happy enough to travel around the country to spectate different events - I travel 3hrs to Burghley every year without complaints because I enjoy the competition. People are happy to travel for events like WEG.

I was almost banking on a UK bid for 2018 WEG actually. Will definitely try get tickets to 2014 - it's a competition like no other and I do think it's a shame that it won't be coming to the UK.


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## huntinghorn (25 November 2011)

I attended WEG for 10 days as a spectator with a friend of mine.  I have to say, it was the experience of a lifetime.
Also I think it's worth a mention, that the whole thing was carried out on a far smaller plot of land than at most of our advanced cross country venues here in th UK.

From what I remember (and I am a bit older these days, so please forgive me), there was one main outdoor arena for the dressage with the warm up arena behind the stands (which you could also watch - very educating). 

The showjumping also used this main arena & warm up arena.

Dressage was the first week of WEG, showjumping was on the 2nd week..

The eventing used a different outdoor arena for their dressage phase & also used that same arena for the start or finish of their course (can't exactly remember which it was), but they used the main arena for the showjumping section (during the SJ week) - which worked well, as it is generally the deciding factor of who wins & was especially great for us as Zara  slammed home her supremacy on the great Toytown!

The XC section of the eventing was not as demanding as Badminton, but was a good course nevertheless & proved for good spectator enjoyment.  I believe they used this ground & other land for the driving section of the games.

The only people lucky enough to have an indoor arena were the vaulting guys.  

Not sure if there was reining - not really my bag - so didn't notice

Re the weather - it rained nearly every day.... a mixture of sun and showers daily - and I was there for 10 days.  It was a waterproofs on & off 15 times a day experience.  But, WE ARE HORSEPEOPLE, we don't mind a bit of rain -  god knows we slog our way through wind, sleet & snow to see our trusty mounts.  Having 1 indoor arena by no means degraded our experience in any way.  I didn't visit the indoor arena once & I had the best time ever!

There wasn't loads of retail there but there was enough to whet your appetite & there were bargains to be found.  Having said that, there was a great social aspect to it & the food/drink sellers were all located in one area with loads of seating which leant itself to being a very social area, expecially as most of the German horse lovers are so passionate about their sport & generally used the day to have lunch, breakfast, dinner,  drinks etc - no need to go out after the event really..The riders also utilised this area which made it all a lot more tangible & exciting!

What was quite refreshing was the fact that I didn't feel "ripped off" - as I so often feel at a UK event after being fleeced £6 for a beef roll & a few quid for a hot drink, not to mention the parking....  Hosting a world event isn't a licence to rip off the unsuspecting audience.....

Everything that they did at Aachen was set out on specific days to maximise utilisation of the facilities that they have at their site & it was obviously so carefully & cleverly planned to ensure that things ran like clockwork - hey, they are German afterall - but surely a leaf can be taken out of their books & perhaps it's time for us Brits to be a little bit humble and admit that the German Nation are better at organisation than us & take quite a few leafs out of their books as to how to run a WEG from the UK without spending the precious little that is left in the UK coffers.....


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## huntinghorn (25 November 2011)

Forgot to say..............

You could walk to everything..

You parked up once & everything from there was walkable.  No need for transport links.

Also the town centre of Aachen really got into the spirit of things & if you did fancy venturing out in the evenings, they seemed to hold some sort of horse related entertainment in the main plaza of the town.

Absolutely amazing experience!

Roll on Normandy!


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## perfect11s (25 November 2011)

huntinghorn said:



			What was quite refreshing was the fact that I didn't feel "ripped off" - as I so often feel at a UK event after being fleeced £6 for a beef roll & a few quid for a hot drink, not to mention the parking....  Hosting a world event isn't a licence to rip off the unsuspecting audience.....

.....
		
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 Surely you wouldent want  to lose our tradition of expensive parking, foul and expensive food at sporting events???? it's one of the few things at which we are  truely world class  !!!!


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## Rachel Mawhood (27 November 2011)

Faithkat said:



			So true and just goes to reinforce the total waste of £42 million that is being spent on the very temporary facililties for the 2012 Olympics.  I would have thought that a permanent facility could have been built for that kind of money.  The Olympics could have been a wonderful opportunity for the UK to have a world class equestrian legacy but  . . . . .
		
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The cost is now £60 million _and counting_.

The person you need to take this up with is Will Connell.  But for him and his insistence on using Greenwich Park, UK equestrianism could have had a new state-of-the-art facility built for that money.


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## Rachel Mawhood (27 November 2011)

Ciss said:



			From an FEI press release just sent out: 'Austria now joins Australia, Canada, Hungary, Morocco, Russia, Sweden and the USA in the bid to host the FEI World Equestrian Games 2018. ... Come on UK/BEF where are you in all this list. ... Inertia / risk avoidance rules again I'm afraid <sigh>
		
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It's not inertia.  It's because Will Connell and the BEF have insisted on £60 million being poured into the ground in Greenwich, instead of creating a legacy for UK equestrianism.  The UK's competitors have been upgrading their facilities (as Captain Mark Phillips has already written about in the H&H) while the UK has looked a once-in-a-lifetime gift horse in the mouth.


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## Rachel Mawhood (27 November 2011)

cefyl said:



			Typical apathy of the heads of UK equestrian sport to kowtow to Coe et al.  What a missed opportunity to create even a basic infrasctucture on which to showcases Britain as an equine nation.  ... they have £42 million to literally throw away.  Disgusting.
		
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And now LOCOG have discovered that the maximum safe capacity of Greenwich Park is not 68,000 or 50,000 (the number of tickets they say they have sold for the cross-country day).  It is 15,000.  Or, being realistic, much less than 15,000 because so much of the available space in the Park is to be taken up with the stadium, stabling, broadcast compounds, etc etc etc.


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## cefyl (28 November 2011)

Rachel Mawhood said:



			And now LOCOG have discovered that the maximum safe capacity of Greenwich Park is not 68,000 or 50,000 (the number of tickets they say they have sold for the cross-country day).  It is 15,000.  Or, being realistic, much less than 15,000 because so much of the available space in the Park is to be taken up with the stadium, stabling, broadcast compounds, etc etc etc.
		
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I know I have asked this before but is'nt it a bit odd that given the financial crisis in Europe that the newspapers have not picked up on this criminal waste of public money?  I would have thought that papers like the Times would have grabbed the opportunity to highlight it.


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## perfect11s (28 November 2011)

Rachel Mawhood said:



			The cost is now £60 million _and counting_.

The person you need to take this up with is Will Connell.  But for him and his insistence on using Greenwich Park, UK equestrianism could have had a new state-of-the-art facility built for that money.
		
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 £60 million !!!!!are you sure ??? for tempoary facilitys!!!! what a  waste  if that's true....  he should consider his position....


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## Rachel Mawhood (28 November 2011)

cefyl said:



			I know I have asked this before but is'nt it a bit odd that given the financial crisis in Europe that the newspapers have not picked up on this criminal waste of public money?  I would have thought that papers like the Times would have grabbed the opportunity to highlight it.
		
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The Government is contractually forbidden from making any announcement/comment about Greenwich Park (as Olympic venue) without the written permission of LOCOG.  I have seen the document that states this.  When I queried this, with an FOI request, the reply was that this was normal with entertainment venues.  Ignoring the fact that Greenwich Park is a public park, not private property, a World Heritage Site and the most important historically of all the Royal Parks.

Anyway, this means that journalists could never obtain a statement from the Government about the criminal waste of money - and criminal damage to the Park - without LOCOG's written agreement.


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## Rachel Mawhood (28 November 2011)

perfect11s said:



			£60 million !!!!!are you sure ??? for tempoary facilitys!!!! what a  waste  if that's true....  he should consider his position....
		
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Absolutely - Lord Coe has never denied it, and our local MP has stated in a letter to a constituent that he thinks this - £60 million with nothing to show for it by way of legacy for UK equestrianism - is value for money.


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## cefyl (28 November 2011)

perfect11s said:



			£60 million !!!!!are you sure ??? for tempoary facilitys!!!! what a  waste  if that's true....  he should consider his position....
		
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HE should consider his position???  I would have hoped that the powers that be "consider" it for him before he throws away any of the much needed elsewhere UK funds.!


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## flyingfeet (28 November 2011)

I am boycotting the Olympics because of our shambolic offering 

And despite the press dripping with saccharine "the test event went really well" 
The reality was that is a pain to get to, did not run well, and the riders complained about the surfaces

70,000 tickets for cross country day, when Badminton admits 250,000 - someone really got their maths wrong and the next we will hear is that the equestrian events were too expensive - yet they missed all opportunities to make money from ticket sales and tradestands

Not to be able to host WEG just shows how wrong the BEF were.


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## Rachel Mawhood (28 November 2011)

Jen_Cots said:



			70,000 tickets for cross country day, when Badminton admits 250,000 - someone really got their maths wrong
		
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Even more wrong than that.  The maximum safe capacity of Greenwich Park is only 15,000 in normal times, probably much less for the Olympic events after the stadium, stables, etc have been put in.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=499368

And Transport for London have told LOCOG that they can't have more than 50,000 trying to get in/out of Greenwich Park on cross-country day because the road and transport infrastructure can't take it.


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## cefyl (28 November 2011)

Rachel Mawhood said:



			The Government is contractually forbidden from making any announcement/comment about Greenwich Park (as Olympic venue) without the written permission of LOCOG.  I have seen the document that states this.  When I queried this, with an FOI request, the reply was that this was normal with entertainment venues.  Ignoring the fact that Greenwich Park is a public park, not private property, a World Heritage Site and the most important historically of all the Royal Parks.

Anyway, this means that journalists could never obtain a statement from the Government about the criminal waste of money - and criminal damage to the Park - without LOCOG's written agreement.
		
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Government statement or not in any other newsworthy story about the missuse of the UK coffers would be headlines.  Something smells strongly fishy here.  It is not a secret so why are the papers ignoring this?  Good grief a politician gets outed in the press for false expenses claims of several thousands of pounds, yet here they are literally throwing OUR UK money down the plughole and not one paper says anything?  More than very odd.


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## Rachel Mawhood (29 November 2011)

cefyl said:



			Government statement or not in any other newsworthy story about the missuse of the UK coffers would be headlines.  Something smells strongly fishy here.  It is not a secret so why are the papers ignoring this?  Good grief a politician gets outed in the press for false expenses claims of several thousands of pounds, yet here they are literally throwing OUR UK money down the plughole and not one paper says anything?  More than very odd.
		
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Well, let's assume for simplicity's sake that there isn't a super-injunction out.  Perhaps it is just that the board of LOCOG and/or the Government have not been told yet that LOCOG has sold 35,000 more tickets than its venue can hold.  Perhaps LOCOG staff are hanging on, praying for a miracle/Katla eruption/ new war breaking out to distract everyone and "save" them.  Put yourself in the position of the newspaper editors: would you want to be the one to tell Prime Minister Cameron?  The implications are huge.


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## cefyl (29 November 2011)

Rachel Mawhood said:



			Well, let's assume for simplicity's sake that there isn't a super-injunction out.  Perhaps it is just that the board of LOCOG and/or the Government have not been told yet that LOCOG has sold 35,000 more tickets than its venue can hold.  Perhaps LOCOG staff are hanging on, praying for a miracle/Katla eruption/ new war breaking out to distract everyone and "save" them.  Put yourself in the position of the newspaper editors: would you want to be the one to tell Prime Minister Cameron?  The implications are huge.
		
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Errrrrrr Cameron is not aware of the complete and utter shambles of LOCOG so far???  He is the PM of our country for goodness sake, he SHOULD be aware!  And if he is not then his head must be further buried in the sand than the rest of them.  Or has Lord Coe and LOCOG taken over the distribution of the UK treasurery?

Interesting that Sky News today has reported Olympic sponsor companies appear to have a gagging order on them from LOCOG to prevent disclosure of their ticket allocations.  LOCOG of course deny it yet they say, and quote "It has been mutually agreed with all sponsors that the terms and conditions of their contracts are commercially confidential."  In other words yes they are GAGGED to put it simply.


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## horsewriter (7 December 2011)

how is everyone planning on watching the olympics?? (assuming you didn't get a ticket!)


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