By Duane Fonseca
The United Arab Emirates show jumping team made history last week by qualifying for its first ever Olympic Games. Abdullah Mohammed Al Marri, Abdullah Humaid Al Muhairi, Omar Abdul Aziz Al Marzooqi and Mohammed Ghanem Al Hajri will fly the flag for the UAE at Paris 2024, after claiming one of the two spots on offer during the direct qualifiers that were held in Doha.
Five teams from Africa and the Middle East vied for the two spots that would be guaranteed to the top two finishers and by virtue of a fewer penalties Saudi Arabia won the qualifying event with just 15 compared to the 25 that relegated the UAE to the second and final direct qualifying spot and a place on the quadrennial programme.
The teams now join the seven others who have already qualified for Paris 2024, including host nation France, Sweden, Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and Belgium. Abdullah Alsharbatly led the Saudis home with a superb double-clear courtesy of his 15yo mount Alamo, with Khaled Almobty their other rider to go through the second round flawlessly.
Abdulrahman Alrajhi and Ramzy Al Duhamy were also part of the Saudi outfit that clocked 235.31s and 237.81s during the first and second rounds respectively. Al Marri riding James VD Oude Heihoef, Al Muhairi on Chacolu, Al Marzooqi on Dalida van de Zuuthoeve and Al Hajri on G’s Fabian collectively posted times of 241.07s and 236.38s over the two legs of competition respectively, while Team Egypt that finished third were timed at a quicker at 237.01s and 236.18s, but had 34 faults.
Al Marri said: “It was our mission to make history for our country. We never qualified for the Olympics as a team before. “It’s been a long road, nearly seven or eight years planning and we failed the first time in Morocco so we were really desperate to qualify today. We had a lot of support from our federation, our stables, our sponsors, the whole contingent from the UAE are supporting us, believing that we could do it.
We are so happy that we achieved it!.” Saudi Arabia has a strong history in jumping, having won the team bronze at the 2012 London Games. They will be hoping for more of the same when the next Olympics take place from 26 July - 11 August, 2024.
