FEI Sports Forum moves online due to Coronavirus Covid-19

The 2020 FEI Sports Forum has been moved to online due to the risk surrounding attendees travelling to and from the event. The FEI conducted a full risk assessment of the rapidly evolving Coronavirus Covid-19 situation, in line with the recommendations of the relevant health authorities, in order to evaluate whether the health and safety of delegates at next month’s FEI Sports Forum can be assured.

The FEI Sports Forum involves a gathering of multiple persons travelling from all over the globe and, while delegates may be healthy on departure from their country of origin, they are at risk of in-transmit contamination. Additionally, if there were to be a confirmed case of the virus during the Sports Forum, there is insufficient infrastructure and resources to quarantine all participants.

As a result of this assessment, the FEI reported

It is absolutely clear that there are too many risks associated with hosting the Sports Forum this year” resulting in the decision to cancel the in-person event and host the time-sensitive sessions online.

Continued the FEI:

Maintaining the full consultation process is important to us, so we will organise an online FEI Anti-Doping Rules session, including an update on the new WADA Code and on the proposed changes to the Equine Anti-Doping Rules.

The full session on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic & Paralympic Games will also be hosted online, with detailed updates on final venue preparations and logistics, horse transportation, and optimising performance in challenging climatic conditions for both horses and humans.

The FEI concluded that other important topics that were initially included in the Sports Forum: events requirements and standards, status of grooms and coaching will be addressed at a later stage.