Equestrian Events Moved to Hong Kong

In a move laden with political implications, International Olympic Committee officials announced today that the equestrian events at the 2008 Beijing Games will be held thousands of miles away, in Hong Kong.

The action comes in response to concerns by officials in Beijing that staging the equestrian events there would mean the inadvertent importation into mainland China of an equine disease.

The move was announced after what the IOC called “constructive negotiations” held during the IOC assembly here.

“Let me be very clear,” IOC President Jacques Rogge said. “Everyone would have wished the competition would have taken place in Beijing ... [but] sanitary problems make this very difficult,” adding that the move to Hong Kong was reached by “mutual agreement.”

The international equestrian federation had long resisted a move to Hong Kong, fearing it would isolate horses and riders and diminish the feeling of competing at an Olympics. Hong Kong officials, however, had eagerly sought the equestrian event as a means of feeling included in China’s ramp up to 2008.

-- Alan Abrahamson