Chinese rider Hua Tian.
After starting the Paris Olympics with a gold-rich four-star champion, the duo of Huatian and Chocolate continues to make history.
In early April, in the International Horse Federation's updated ranking of individual Olympic qualifying points for three races, Chinese rider Hua Tianhe Chocolate ranked second in the world with 75 points.
While Huatian created the highest ranking of his career, he also rewrote the history of Chinese equestrian and created the best ranking in the history of Chinese equestrian individual Olympic points.
Huatian ranked second in the world.
Everything is planned
According to the surging news reporter, this ranking includes all the people and horses in the world who have passed the minimum qualification standard (MER) for the Paris Olympic Games.
During the Paris Olympic cycle, the ranking counts a series of three events in the FIMA four-star category and above from January 1, 2023, and calculates the ranking of the four best races of the pair, updated monthly.
Huatian was able to make history and climb to second place in this global list precisely because he scored important points with his partner Chocolate in Monterey Breti, Italy, at the start of the new season.
Hua Tian in the game.
In that game, Hua Tian was actually not leading all the way. In the dressage competition, Huatian and Chocolate scored 31.4 penalties with tacit cooperation, ranking second behind Dutchman Sannet Dejong.
In the subsequent show jumping competition, Hua Tian and Chocolate finished with zero penalties and a time of 69.93 seconds, continuing to rank second.
In the afternoon cross-country race, they continued to be in shape, with only 9.2 free throws, and finally completed the overtake with 41.4 free throws, winning the championship in the first place overall.
"It's great to see my name in the second place in the FIMA Olympic qualifying points ranking and happy to start the season."
After learning that he had created his personal best and the best Olympic points ranking in Chinese equestrian, Hua Tian told The Paper that such a performance was in his plan, but it was not easy to maintain such a high ranking.
"Last month I took my horse buddies to Mont Town, Italy, to play a few beautiful races and get satisfactory individual points, but that was one of the strategies this year."
"I'm so proud of them, especially Ms. Ma Zhuyi's chocolate. It's been following me for almost six years, we know each other well and it's incredibly talented, but it's the first time it's been tried this year at the four-star long course level, so there's still plenty of unknowns that we need to tread carefully. ”
In fact, as Hua Tian said, it was the tactics he had designed with his team to achieve the ideal Olympic ranking in the first half of the season.
"The difficulty of Olympic qualification is standing, which means that you have to pay attention to the performance of your opponents while completing the competition yourself. If you can get a good ranking in the first half of the season, you can put pressure on your opponent in the second half. ”
Hua Tian has previously talked about this strategy in an exclusive interview with The Paper, but Hua Tian and his teammates must continue to work hard to recreate the highlight of the Chinese team in the Olympic Games as a team in the Tokyo equestrian arena.
The Chinese equestrian team performed well
In accordance with the Olympic points rules, the FIMA Group G Olympic team qualification battle will be played in Milstreet, Ireland, from June 1 to 4.
Previously, New Zealand in Group G had already qualified for the Paris Olympics in advance through the FEI World Championships, so the Chinese triathlon team will compete with Australia, Japan and Thailand for the only two Olympic team qualifications.
Centaur combinations from countries that fail to qualify for the team will compete for the only two individual Paris Olympic Olympics qualifiers in their group through individual Olympic qualification points, with a maximum of one centaur pair per country qualifying through this ranking.
After the dust has settled on individual eligibility in all seven groups, the FEI will rank all remaining Centaur combinations from all seven groups that did not qualify for the Olympic team, with the top three Centaur combinations qualifying in the final three qualifying, but a total of up to two centaur pairs from each country can travel to Paris as individuals.
This means that Hua Tian and his horses will first fight for the Olympic team competition of Chinese equestrian, and if this impact is not successful, Hua Tian will also have the opportunity to fight for personal qualification to stand on the Paris Olympics and continue to compete in the Olympics on behalf of China.
Chinese equestrianism is forming a group advantage.
It is worth mentioning that at this stage, the performance of the Chinese equestrian team is eye-catching.
In addition to Hua Tian, who made history, Chinese riders Sun Huadong and Lady ranked 13th in the overall list with 47 points. CHINESE RIDERS BAO YINGFENG AND FLANDIA 2 RANKED 81 OVERALL.
SPECIFICALLY IN THE GROUP G OLYMPIC GROUP WHERE AUSTRALASIA AND EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA ARE LOCATED, HUATIANHE CHOCOLATE RANKED SECOND AFTER THE AUSTRALIAN PAIR SOPHIA HILL AND HUMBLE GLORY; Sun Huadong and Lady ranked fourth in Group G; BAO YINGFENG AND FLANDIA 2, ALONG WITH HUATIAN AND QIJI, RANKED 23RD AND 35TH IN THIS GROUP, RESPECTIVELY.
"Although we have achieved good results since the start of the season, there is still a lot that needs to be done." Hua Tian told The Paper that a good start can also allow him to better achieve his goals this season, including the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games.
"At the moment, I can take a lot of pressure off and now I need to focus on the Asian Games and wait and see how my new partners, Aquaman and Qiji, perform."