新聞

新聞
2021-08-13

Dear members,

 

With the objective to inspire our young riders in Hong Kong, an Online Sharing Session “Road to Tokyo – Hong Kong’s First Olympic Eventing Journey” was held yesterday afternoon with Thomas Ho, Hong Kong first Eventing Olympian as our main speaker. Other guest speakers were Stephen Way, Thomas’s Coach, Corinne Bracken, Performance Manager, The Hong Kong Jockey Club ad well as Nicole Pearson, Hong Kong Eventing rider.

 

At the beginning of the sharing session, Nicole Pearson, who is the mentor, best friend and also teammate of Thomas, shared with us her experience in teaching Thomas in the old days and how she persuaded him to start his career in Eventing. Annie Ho, Nicole Pearson and Thomas Ho together formed the Eventing team and earned a Team Bronze at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. After the Games, Thomas has became a full time athlete and focused on Eventing.

 

“With the pandemic, lock down and Brexit in the UK, travel restrictions as well as limited number of shows available, preparation for the Olympic Games had been extremely difficult. By facing the ever changing situation caused by the pandemic, we had prepared not just 2 but 3 different training and competition plans for Thomas,” said Stephen. Good preparation is one of the keys to success. Like the cross-country course, Thomas and Stephen had walked the course together 5 times and every time they only focused on one particular type of fences or lines or options. Stephen was very pleased and proud of Thomas’ first performance at the Olympic Games. It was amazing that Thomas and Tayberry finished in 42nd place over 63 riders who started at the Eventing competitions of the Games.

 

Being the Performance Manager, Corinne has tried her best to take away any potential pressure from Thomas during both the preparation and Games period. Even with no worries on Thomas’ training at home, there were still a lot of uncertainties during the preparation stage such as the quarantine before the Games. “Cancellation of the Games in 2020, the COVID and the Brexit have been the big challenges to our preparation. 4 weeks before the horse quarantine in Aachen prior to the Games we were told that no entrance from UK was allowed!” recalled Corinne. “It was the whole team working behind the scene to make things smooth and ensure everything in place.”

 

The highlight of the session was the review of Thomas’ performance at the Games. During the replay of videos, for the first time, Thomas commentated his own performance and shared with us his feelings when he was competing in the Dressage, Cross-Country and also the Jumping Phase. “Tayberry was such a loyal horse to me and there is a strong bond between the two of us. It was an incredible experience, the chance of a lifetime to compete at the Olympic Games,” said Thomas. Talking about his future plan, Thomas said, “I am of course looking forward to forming a team for the Asian Games next year, the World Equestrian Games and also next Olympics in Paris.”

 

On behalf of HKEF, Angela Kong, Secretary General and host of the sharing session, thanked Thomas for making history for our sport at the Olympic Games. Gratitude also goes to Stephen, Corinne, Dr. Adrian Farrington, our Team Vet as well as Miranda Rauis, Thomas fiancée, for supporting Thomas throughout the entire preparation and the Games period.

 

The HKEF would like to express our gratitude to Thomas, Nicole, Stephen and Corinne for their time and support to the session. We hope that all members enjoyed the session and were inspired by the journey of the team.

 

Please also feel free to share with us any suggestions or ideas for future online sessions. We really appreciate your opinion so we can provide a wide variety of relevant content.

 

Thank you for your kind attention.

 

Best Regards,

Hong Kong Equestrian Federation

 

Completion of HKEF Online Sharing Session on “Road to Tokyo – Hong Kong’s First Olympic Eventing Journey”Completion of HKEF Online Sharing Session on “Road to Tokyo – Hong Kong’s First Olympic Eventing Journey”