Conference noted::equitation

    
    how do we get tickets for the alanta games?  I want to go and
    veiw all the eqine events.
    
    

    Bill,
    
    If the Atlanta summer Olympics are in 1996, and with the 'new' system
    of alternating winter/summer events on a bi-yearly basis, wouldn't that
    put the potential Boston summer Olympics in 2000, not 2008 ??
    
    I agree with you, volunteering would be fantastic! I'd offer my own
    services in the Endurance riding phase, though...what fun it'd be to 
    have them so close to home!
    
    - Linda
              

    Re: previous
    
    The Olympic Games for the year 2000 have already been awarded to
    Sydney, Australia.
    
    Awarding the 1996 games to Atlanta, 100 years after the first "modern"
    Olympic games were held in Athens, Greece, so soon after the 1984 Los
    Angeles Olympics, created a lot of ill will in the rest of the world.
    It was the TV rights $'s that got the games back to the U.S. so soon.
    
    When I was in Atlanta last year for DECUS, I telephoned the Olympic
    Organizers Committee to find out for a friend how they were going to
    select volunteers for staffing the various equestrian events.
    "Volunteers" will be chosen from the pool of people who are already
    working (as volunteers) on pre-Olympic activities such as fund raising,
    logistics, community relations and all the other adminstrivia and
    bureaucracy necessary to put on the games. 
    
    Since I had to stay on in Atlanta for a trade show I went off to a
    local horse trial at the weekend. Here I met one of the timers from the
    L.A. Olympics speed and edurance day of the Three Day Event. While he
    had put his name forward for the Atlanta Olympics he had no idea how
    selections were actually going to be made but suspected it would be
    "political". As an aside these trials were held on a classic Georgia
    hot day with temperature and humidity in the ninties. It's perfectly
    possible to have an Open Training level horse trials under such
    conditions. No way can you have a CCI competition, in my opinion. All
    that you will be determining is whose horse can handle the heat and
    humidity best. 
    
    Begin Editorial:
    
    Massachusetts politicians already have too much of an "edifice
    complex", pushing the Megaplex on to Boston, the second airport and a
    number of other "civic projects" at tax payers expense. The thought of
    the Olympics will send them into a further frenzy; the patronage
    opportunties alone will be mind boggling. The Olympics only lasts for
    two weeks; Montreal hasn't yet finished paying for the 1976 Olympics,
    nearly twenty years ago!
    
    End editorial
    
    

    Apparently, with all of the college campuses and other facilities in
    and around Boston (they're talking Worcester, Providence and Portsmouth,
    as well as Boston proper), they have at least 20 of the 26 venues they
    will need to accomodate all of the events. They (the committee to bring
    the Olympics to Beantown) intend to keep the actual construction to a
    minimum. One of the things I heard was that they couldn't possibly
    expect even to handle the traffic if all events were kept within 128.

    To .0 - So...how old will you be in 2008? Oh, sorry - I guess I'll be
    able to haul programs around, or something - I'm sure they'll have
    something for us, no matter how trivial! 

    -julie

Well, living here in Atlanta, it wouldn't bother me much if they moved
the whole she-bang to some other place.  It won't be worth cranking up
your car the entire 3 weeks.

As for the voluteers, yes, it will be very political.  Stories are already
circulating about how your community service records are being checked for
quite some time back.  Like you can't just start doing community service
the year before the olympics.  Theres a note in the ATLANTA notes file
about this....You could check that out for further details. 

As for the heat and humidity, I'd heard it was really bad in Barcelona....Is
Georgia that much worse?  

Jan

re: .1

>>Only thing that I've seen recently going on in Atlanta is a high level of 
>>concern for the horses' health (esp the 3-day eventers) with regards to the 
>>possible high humidity which can definitely short circuit a horse's ability 
>>to cool himself off.  

    Being from Mass and spending 1 week in Atlanta in August I can't
    imagine doing much of anything out-of-doors.  I thought the employers
    of men doing road work on some of those interstates should be fined
    for cruelty.

    You must aclimate to it over time so I bet most human and equine
    athletes arrive in Atlanta in the spring.

re: .5

>>    To .0 - So...how old will you be in 2008? 

    Il'l tell if you will.

    Regarding what's going on in Atlanta, I do know that there is a
    test this summer, a horse trials, to see what the effects of
    having the Olympics in Atlanta would be on the horses.  The
    Chronicle of the Horse (weekly magazine) and AHSA's Horse Show
    magazine have both discussed this in the recent months.  I'll
    look for more info.  The most recent thing I read said they were
    looking for entries to participate in the test.  I believe the
    test will include horses that do the complete trial, plus a group
    which eliminates two of the tests (like road & tracks and steeplechase;
    eventers, please forgive me, I'm a hunter person, so going on memory
    of what I read, if I made a mistake in terminology).  The horses
    will all be checked by vets throughout, and analysis later, to see
    if modifying the trials for the weather will result in fewer
    injuries.  As you may recall, Barcelona eventing got a lot of
    bad press.  The AHSA and USET, etc. are determined to ensure the
    future of horse sports, and want to be proactive in protecting
    the horses from unnecessary injury/illness, by modifying events
    now.  
    
    Another issue is that the IOC has been eyeing horse events
    as possible sports to eliminate/cut back on, to make room for
    newer events (tennis, ping-pong, etc.), since Olympics can only
    accommodate so many sports.  One other proposal is to eliminate
    team medals, have only individual medals.  So, all these are reasons
    for horse events to have an exciting, safe, showing in Atlanta.
    
    As stated above, I'll look for the detail on the tests to be
    conducted this summer, in case anyone's interested.
    
    Regards,
    
    Jennie 

    Actually, there has been ongoing research into horses' coping with 
    Atlanta's summer climate for several years. A research study sponsored
    by the U.S. Combined Training Association is described in Note 1538.10.
    
    I recently read in the Blood Horse (I think) of a study in England. The 
    study exercised horses on a treadmill under heat and humidity conditions 
    similar to Atlanta's summer conditions. They used various types of 
    horses and monitored them while they exercised. Only one horse, a 
    Thoroughbred, was allowed to complete the exercise routine. The authors 
    suggest that the Thoroughbred's lean rangy body type helped dissipate 
    the heat better. 
    
    But, they suggest that the real problem was the humidity. The humidity
    caused horses that were not used to the combination of heat and humidity 
    to stop sweating. The implication is that horses will need long 
    adaptation periods to adapt to Atlanta's summer conditions.
    
    I'm pretty sure that this was in The Blood Horse because they offered
    it as an excuse for the poor showing of English horses in the last 2
    Breeders' Cups which were held in hot climates(Florida, definitely hot
    and humid and Los Angeles CA, definitely hotter than England in
    November)
    
    John

I heard last week in the news that the Olympics officials here in Georgia
were discussing changes to the equestrian events to give the animals
some protection from the extreme heat and humidity.  They were (supposedly)
basing their changes on the results of a test that had been conducted (didn't
mention what test or where it was run).  There was no mention of what the
changes would be, other than to say the number of obstacles might be reduced.

The news report also said the events (at this time) would not be moved
from Georgia.  I would assume that means its at least being discussed.

Sorry this is so sketchy....The news report wasn't very informative.

Jan