🏆 National Championships Hijacking International Classes
Every year, I find myself circling back to the same question, as in why on earth are national senior championships allowed to run inside international classes?
Three four-stars that should stand proudly on their own. Yet each year, they are reduced to hosting duty for the DM 🇩🇪, BK 🇧🇪, or NK 🇳🇱.
And what happens? The focus shifts. The five-star at Luhmühlen suddenly feels like a supporting act, because the very best German riders aim not at the pinnacle but at the German Championship, sitting hidden inside the CCI4*-S.
Same story in Belgium. Same again in the Netherlands.
It doesn’t stop there.
These “double duty” classes pull in riders who are barely qualified, the MER-chasers who see a chance to get a start at a big event, under the cover of a national medal race.
The result? The international class loses quality, loses credibility, and loses the spotlight it deserves.
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And here’s the part that makes me wince. Cause imagine finishing 17th overall in an international ranking and still stepping onto the podium as the national champion.
That’s not glory, that’s playing with numbers. While sending the worst possible message about what we value in this sport.
Weirdly enough this only seem to be an eventing problem.
Overall, [correct me if I'm wrong] both dressage and show jumping seem to run their own events. With the exception to the rule being the BK in show jumping which is run during the World Championships at Zangersheide.
Even so, the BK-finale runs on Saturday afternoon and does not interfere one single bit with the world championship finals on Sunday. And that's the thing.
A championship should be about excellence, the best against the best, on equal terms, in a competition that stands on its own. Not piggybacked into a class that was meant to showcase the sport to the world.
In it's current set up it looks both small and messy, and I for one believe our sport deserves so much better than that.