How to communicate on the equine industry – European Horse Network Webinar

IAEJ was one of the invited parties to present at the European Horse Network Webinar on 27th of February. You can watch the final product here or browse through the IAEJ presentation made by board member and secretary Kim C Lundin.

IAEJ member Mark Wentein was the moderator and host for the webinar.

From the EHN invitation:

“How to communicate on the equine industry – Take the opportunity of the Olympics to present good stories

There is enough data to show that the concerns around horse involvement in sport are rising. The equine world must positively engage with both perception and reality and show real commitment to change and ensure positive values.

How do we educate the professionals, the media, and the public to meet the changing social values?

Do we know the reality of people’s opinions? Share surveys

Where are the good stories and how do we promote them?

Look at existing public initiatives to copy (for young people, for media, for the general public)

Invent EHN messages for tomorrow that could be supported by the industry.

Moderator: Mark Wentein, Chairman of the European Horse Network

  • FEI Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission – Survey on the public opinion on equestrian Sport – Jessica Stark, Head of Communication at World Horse Welfare
  • FEI TV and Media – The Horse in society and the horse in competitions – Olivia Robinson, Communication Director at FEI
  • FNRS, the Dutch Federation of Professional Equestrian Centres in the Netherlands – Moderation & pro-active handling of communication around horses and sport horses – Haike Blaauw, Managing Director at FNRS
  • COFICHEV, Conseil et Observatoire Suisse de la Filière du Cheval- Symposium with Media organized in 2022 – Objectives and Conclusions – Charles Trolliet, President at Cofichev
  • International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists – The need of the specialized press – Kim C Lundin, Swedish free-lancer journalist and photographer, board member and secretary at IAEJ, International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists”

 

Watch the webinar in full length, IAEJ presentation last to go.

Members being threatened and verbally abused during LGCT Stockholm


The IAEJ board has received some disturbing information from members working at the Longines Global Champions Tour event in Stockholm taking place 16th to the 18th of June at the venue Ryttarstadion.

On Sunday an accident occurred in the warm-up, well-known Olympic medalist Peder Fredricson suffered a fall when warming up one of his horses ahead of a youngster class. It was immediately communicated from Peder Fredricson to the people coming first that he needed an ambulance and he instructed that he should not be moved. The show organization worked to put up shielding in waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Journalists and photographers at the scene never had any clear view of Peder Fredricson, just lying very still to secure his neck, he was awake and lucid the whole time instructing people on the ground before the ambulance arrived.

What happened on the side-lines, some 50 meters from the site where the shielding where erected is nothing short of a debacle regarding the handling of requests for information from the assembled press; journalists and photographers.
Seasoned and well-reputed photographer and IAEJ member Roland Thunholm was on site as an accredited photographer and did his job: taking pictures of what happened.

“I was not in the way of the ambulance staff and stood outside the warm-up area. I didn’t take pictures of Peder, but of the shielding. That’s my job. Then some of LGCT’s own security guards came and forced me to leave. When they didn’t think I was going fast enough, they pushed me. I asked where I could stand, they showed me a place and I went there and took pictures and then they came again and were going to take my accreditation from me.”

The guards, who did not speak Swedish, thought that the pictures that Roland Thunholm took of the ambulance and the shielding violated privacy and they pressured the photographer to delete his pictures.

“I deleted a picture. Then I took the memory card out of the camera. I thought that if they took the camera away from me, at least they won’t get hold of the pictures”.

Now the Swedish Sports Journalists’ Association has reacted against the incident and is protesting the treatment that Roland Thunholm was subjected to.
“On the one hand, 80-year-old Thunholm has been treated brusquely, and on the other hand, the organizer has taken it upon themselves to decide which pictures he can take. It is unacceptable that an accredited journalist and/or photographer is hindered in his professional practice in this way”, says Jens Littorin, SSF’s chairman, in a statement on the association’s website.

Our member Roland Thunholm, a photographer, who was hindered in his work at the LGCT show in Stockholm tried to argue that it was his job as a press photographer to document the events happening, publication would be a separate and later decision by the editor-in-chief.

The LGCT press manager Floss Bish-Jones was hostile towards the local Swedish press representatives throughout the weekend but this incident on Sunday made it to the largest daily newspapers in Sweden (DN), Svenska Dagbladet, and to a number of different media outlets in Sweden. The incident Roland Thunholm was trying to capture was the shielded-off rescue operation after a fall in the warm-up by previous world no-1 Peder Fredricson who left the hospital Tuesday 20th of June with a neck injury (nothing fractured but severely bruised). 

IAEJ member Annika Grundberg, editor-in-chief for the web edition of the magazine Hippson, bore witness to how the security staff tried to make all photographers leave in a very threatening way. The security staff also tried to put up covering shielding in front of the warm-up to stop the press from watching as the ambulance came to pick up Peder Fredricson some 50 meters away.

“It was a very threatening situation where the security staff tried to throw several of us out, taking our accreditation, although we only tried to get information. A very unpleasant weekend all in all where journalists and the few photographers on site were treated as scum. All we wanted was an official statement about Peder Fredricson and how he was doing, we were about 10-12 journalists waiting and no information came.”

Apart from the security staff acting aggressively and hostile, trying to remove photographers, the volunteers on the scene caught on and started name-calling the press representatives “hyenas, vultures, scumbags” and similar words in Swedish. According to Annika Grundberg, the whole situation was extremely unpleasant but only the tip of the iceberg as the working conditions during the weekend was extremely difficult. The press got no access to the riders after the classes, there were no press conferences and if reporters tried to talk to riders after the classes, they were all dismissed, and the riders were taken away.

The IEAJ will notify the LGCT and the FEI about this unpleasant and unnecessary incident hindering journalists and photographers to do their job, in this day and age it is truly several steps backward.

Journalists and photographers have been known to have trouble receiving accreditation with the LGCT, the organizer simply has no interest in having independent journalists and photographers on-site at their events.

Have you experienced problems with the LGCT as a journalist and/or photographer? Contact the IAEJ through our closed-member Facebook-page or by email to anyone on the board.

Accreditation for Santiago 2023 Pan American Games (CHI)

Santiago 2023 Pan American Games (CHI)The Santiago 2023 Pan American Games in Chile will run from October – 5 November 2023 and the media accreditation process for the Games is now underway. One of the world’s most important multi-sport events will bring together more than 7,000 athletes from the 41 countries of the Americas to compete in 39 sports across 61 disciplines.
Equestrian sports have been a part of the Pan American Games since they started back in 1951 in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, and have remained on the list of sports at every game since. Santiago 2023 will be the world’s largest qualifying event for Paris 2024, with a record 33 disciplines – eight more than the previous record set by Lima 2019 – offering entries to next year’s Olympics. And that of course includes the three equestrian disciplines, so Jumping, Eventing, and Dressage will definitely attract top athletes and horses. So how many equestrian nations can qualify for Paris at the Pan Ams?

Dressage (22-25 October): The two (2) highest-ranked teams from FEI Olympic Groups D and/or E at Santiago 2023 will earn their Olympic place, excluding those nations already qualified through the Paris 2024 Olympic qualifying system.
Eventing (27-29 October): The two (2) highest-ranked teams from FEI Olympic Groups D and/or E at this year’s Pan Ams will book their tickets to the French capital for next year, excluding those nations that have previously qualified through the Paris 2024 Olympic qualifying system.
Jumping (31 October – 3 November): The three (3) highest-ranked teams from FEI Olympic Groups D and/or E at Santiago 2023 will secure Olympic qualification, excluding those nations that have previously qualified through the Paris 2024 Olympic qualifying system.

Pre-qualified: The only nation from the Americas that has already earned Paris 2024 qualification in any of the three Olympic disciplines is the United States of America. Team silver at last year’s FEI Eventing World Championships in Italy, and a sixth-place finish at the FEI Dressage World Championships 2022 in Denmark means Team USA has two out of three places already booked and will be aiming to add a team Jumping slot in Santiago 2023.
Venue: The historic Chilean Army Riding School, located in San Isidro de Quillota, will be the competition venue hosting the equestrian disciplines. Over 100 years old, this is the venue where the world high jump record – which still stands – was set at 2.47 metres (8ft 1in) by Captain Alberto Larraguibel Morales and the Thoroughbred stallion Huaso in 1949.
Substantial refurbishment work is being done on the venue, which is around 90 minutes from the Chilean capital. The focus will be on the stables, the field of play and warm-up arenas, which will have an underfloor irrigation system that has already been approved by FEI footing expert Christian Bauer.
Media accreditation: Panam Sports (formerly the Pan American Sports Organization) runs the Pan American Games and they have advised that the media accreditation process is now open.IAEJ members wishing to get accreditation to cover the Games need to contact their National Olympic Committee (NOC) directly. However, there is a separate accreditation process for media from a country that does not have athletes participating. They can contact press.accreditation@santiago2023.org.
Details on the accreditation process are available at https://www.panamsports.org/…/press-accreditation…/
and for more information, media can also get in touch with Pan Am Sports Communications Director Alejandro Goycoolea (alejandro@panamsports.org), +56 994 081 884 and Communications Manager Kevin Nutley (knutley@panamsports.org), +1 678 262 6612.
About Pan Am Sports – https://www.panamsports.org/about-panamsports/history/

“Alan Smith 1933 – 2022”

It is with great regret and sadness that we wish to inform our members of the passing of Alan Smith at the age of 89.

Alan, one of the founders of the International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists, was a veteran of 17 Olympic Games (nine Summer and eight Winter) and served as the Telegraph Sport equestrian correspondent for an incredible 48 years.

He was instrumental in bringing to pass many of the aspects of equestrian sport we now take for granted both on the field of play and in the press room.

__________________________________________________________

Alan Smith (GBR).jpg
British journalist Alan Smith, who covered the equestrian sport for nearly half a century, has passed away at the age of 89. © FEI

In Memoriam: FEI pays tribute to British journalist Alan Smith

Alan Smith (GBR), who was the equestrian correspondent of the Daily Telegraph for 48 years, covering 10 summer Olympic Games and every major equestrian championship between 1960 and 2008, has died, aged 89. Remarkably, he was in charge of the newspaper’s skiing coverage at eight winter Olympic Games having attended no less than 17 Olympic Games altogether.

Starting with the FEI Jumping European Championship for Juniors held in Hickstead (GBR) in 1961 through to the 2008 Olympic Games, after which he retired, he acquired a profound knowledge of the equestrian sport and became a walking encyclopedi of results and unforgettable stories. His dedication to the profession – he was dogged in the pursuit of a good story – and great kindness to young writers, helped him set the high standard of equestrian journalism, for which he is greatly admired to this day.

Before “falling into journalism”, as he would say later, he turned down a place at Reading University because his father was ill and someone in the family had to make a living. He joined the Brenards Air News agency which was based at Heathrow, now one of the world’s largest travel hubs, but only a “collection of huts” in those days.

After a spell working on pedigrees for the British Bloodstock Agency – his love of racing never left him and he continued to have shares in racehorses until his death – he was taken on by the Telegraph racing desk. One day the deputy sports editor asked him if he would like to cover “a bit of show jumping” and he never looked back.

In addition to his journalistic work, Alan Smith was on numerous committees including the FEI Jumping World Cup Committee, from the series creation in 1978 through to 1998. He developed a lasting friendship with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was the FEI President from 1964 to 1986. Having covered the equestrian sport for nearly 50 years, he became the much admired and respected doyen of his profession.

“Alan Smith was one of the living legends of equestrian journalism and the sport as a whole,” FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez said. “He has sadly passed away after covering some of Jumping and Eventing’s greatest moments. On behalf of the FEI, I am honored to pay tribute to such a remarkable newspaperman, who knew everything there was to know about the sport and more. He was admired for his infallible work ethic and was a true legend across press offices worldwide. My thoughts at this sad time are with Alan Smith’s family and friends and the British equestrian community. He will be very much missed.”

In 2020, fellow equestrian journalist Louise Parkes conducted a lovely interview with Alan Smith, which is available on the FEI website here. We invite you to read it and join us in remembering an exceptional professional and a wonderful man.

New board elected, no more bureau

The ECCO FEI World Championship in Herning 2022 has come, swept us up in a swirl, and is gone again. The IAEJ General Assembly took place in a gap between morning shuttles and the show jumping horse inspection on the 8th of August. There is not much slack time on a championship nowadays and we filled a small conference room with members able to stay a while for our General Assembly to be complete.

Former president Pamela Young, who has been a formidable resource for the association, as well as vice president Louise Parkes who has kept us all in line and down to core values at all times stepped down after time well served. Pamela Young flew in, especially for the occasion and this was the full board’s first meeting in person since being elected at the WEG in Tryon, North Carolina USA, in 2018.

Resigning bureau members from left to right Jan Tönjes, Louise Parkes, Pamela Young, Mollie Bailey, Jon Stroud, Kim Lundin

 

The members had sent in their votes through a member survey and seven board members were elected, updated statutes accepted and the bureau is out – IAEJ now has a board.

At a statutory meeting later in the competition week the new board members sat down for introductions and dispersing of responsibilities. Below the result is displayed.

IAEJ Board Members 2022-2026

President

Jan Tönjes (GER) serving his second term

Vice President

Mollie Bailey (USA) serving her second term

Secretary

Kim Lundin (SWE) serving her second term

Photographer’s Representative

Jon Stroud (GBR) serving his second term

Board Members new in from 2022

Arnd Bronkhorst – info@arnd.nl

Diana De Rosa (USA) – dderosa1@optonline.net

Kirsty Pasto (AUS) – Kirsty.pasto@gmail.com

Jennifer Anstey (CAN) will maintain and be a continuous support to the board. She stays as Business Manager, a hired service provided to IAEJ as we do not have a board member with the capability and facilities to act as treasurer.

Board of 2022, from left to right, Kim C Lundin, Diana de Rosa, Jon Stroud, Kirsty Pasto, new president Jan Tönjes, Arnd Bronkhorst, new vice president Mollie Bailey. Photo: Allen Macmillan

 

 

For members with a Tokyo 2020 accreditation – communication while in Japan

Dear, members

The Tokyo 2020 working group sent out a web survey a while back asking all of you about your plans for the Olympic games of Tokyo 2020. From that web survey, we learned among other things that many were previously booked in non-official lodgings or lacked accommodation. We hope that you are now booked and confirmed in an approved hotel. From the same survey, we also could deduce that when we all are in Tokyo the preferred method of communication is a WhatsApp-group chat followed by information on Facebook.

While some of us are in Tokyo there might be occasions when you want to ask something, ventilate a matter, try and coordinate a commute, or whatever purpose you might have. One of the mandatory things to bring to Japan is a  smartphone, well charged and loaded with all the apps needed. As we have been promised wi-fi even on the buses to and from the MPC and the venue, many hours and perhaps a lot of waiting time, it is perfect to use apps for communication rather than expensive roaming capacity. Most of you probably can make use of the time on the bus for work so let’s hope that TOCOG will make good on their promise of free wi-fi on buses.

To try and facilitate communication between us all there will be a WhatsApp group established – to enroll you need to give us some information, almost another excel-spreadsheet that we now have filled in so many of. See more info below on how to enroll.

This does not imply that the IAEJ board members will have time to help out and facilitate while in Tokyo, everybody usually has a very full plate of work assignments during a championship. Our hope is that the group itself will be able to take turns and helping each other out when in need. It will be the first try for all of us, let’s pull together and share the load.

With barely two weeks until game time, we hear a lot about people having trouble with their activity plans, some even being rejected. The main issue does not seem to be the places listed to go listed in the activity plan but rather the reasons for demanding to not quarantine at all in comparison to three days. At this point in time, it is difficult to say whether there is a wording that will get you out of three days quarantine. This is in stark contrast to one of the things that were specifically promised during the press briefing after version 2 of the Playbook – that we could all get out of the quarantine and just apply for specific oversight. This is a promise that right now it seems TOCOG will not be able to fulfill, perhaps it all falls back on the strict regulations from the Japanese Government. Given the uncertainty, be prepared for a few days confined to your hotel room.

As many of the systems and apps mandatory to use and feed information to is not working up to par and it seems to be an overload of administrative work in the TOCOG organization – we recommend all members to have all vital information provided to the different system ICON, ADS, OCHA, etc on paper as well. Be prepared to show and prove that you have done your homework when you arrive at the airport in case the many many TOCOG systems do not deliver as promised.  We are still waiting for the most crucial one – the booking app for day passes to our workplace. Be ready to fill in your wishlist on the 15th of July.

On that note – who wants to enroll in a WhatsApp-group?

Sincerely

Your working group members – KimJonJan

Kim Lundin, Jon Stroud and Jan Tönjes

 

How to sign up to IAEJ Tokyo 2020 Games chat

Send an email to kim @ witnet . se, by providing this information you accept to share the details below with the group.

Including:
Name
Email
Mobile number with country code
Nationality
Accreditation type
Media
Disciplines covered
Arrival date
Departure date
Hotel in Tokyo

Why do we want so much information – mainly because there are many members that neither of us are familiar with or know on a personal level. In order to enable people to help out, more information makes it easier.

WhatsApp Desktop is a tool for your Mac/PC and connects through your phone number

Information from FEI for members with accreditation to Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

This memo was sent 2nd of July to members of the press with an accreditation from the FEI for Tokyo 2020. 

 

Dear Member of the Media

All accredited persons have been receiving a huge amount of content from Tokyo 2020, almost to the point of saturation, but there is a lot of information and paperwork sent to media by the Tokyo Press Operations team which you MUST read, complete and submit in order to ensure your entry into Japan for the Olympic Games.

As we mentioned in previous correspondence, these Games will be very different to their predecessors due to the Covid-19 countermeasures that have been put in place to ensure a safe and successful Olympics and Paralympics this summer. This means that there are a lot of requirements and resulting deadlines that have never previously existed, and accredited media planning to cover the Games onsite in Tokyo will need to comply with these vital conditions or there is a risk that access to Japan will be denied.

It is your personal responsibility to ensure all the administrative requirements are fulfilled, including the Covid Liaison Officer (CLO) registration.

Although you have been granted a sport specific media accreditation through the FEI/IOC allocation, the FEI is not and cannot be your CLO. If your media organisation is not taking on the CLO role for you, independent media travelers (freelancers/independent organisations) should already have declared themselves as their own CLO, completed and submitted all administrative requirements to ensure entry into Tokyo.

Following declaration of the CLO’s identity, you should have already received a CLO user application form for ICON registration. Tokyo 2020 ICON Management Authority is the platform onto which you should have uploaded your activity plan four weeks prior to travel.

You should also have entered your flight information into the ADS (Arrival & Departure Information System) and downloaded the health monitoring app (OCHA) and the track and trace app (COCOA).

Please be aware that health monitoring data cannot be uploaded to the OCHA app until your activity plan has been approved. However, there is a delay in approval of activity plans across all stakeholder groups and this has been flagged up by the IOC as a priority with the Japanese government.

Until your activity plan has been approved and you can enter data onto the OCHA app, it is crucial that you record your temperature on a daily basis for 14 days prior to travel and note any related Covid-19 symptoms and those of your in-contacts. This data can be uploaded to the OCHA app once your activity plan has been approved, however in the event that your activity plan has not been approved when you are due to travel, we strongly recommend that you print out all the health data and take it with you.

As detailed in the Media Playbook you are required to have Two Covid-19 tests, taken on separate days, the first within 96 hours of your departure for Japan, and the second 72 hours prior to departure.

Consult the Playbook for valid tests. Download the certificate in English/Japanese and bring this to your doctor for signature.

There are a number of people who have decided they no longer wish to travel to Tokyo and would prefer to work remotely. You can secure your remote access to the MyInfo system by contacting the Tokyo Press Services Team directly.

Best regards

FEI Communications

 

 

Update from the IAEJ working group Tokyo2020

Dear members,

No good news from the IAEJ working group Tokyo2020.

We have had another very informative meeting with the FEI’s press department and we can assure everybody that every effort possible being made by the FEI to supply us with the best working circumstances during the Covid-19 pandemic. We are, however, very worried but must face reality. COVID is still a very big issue in Japan and the Japanese government is enforcing numerous countermeasures that impact our work environment.

One thing is for sure:
These games will remain forever in our heads if only because we were not allowed to enter the Equestrian stadium on the day of the dressage freestyle or the second round of the nation’s cup. This sounds awful but it likely that some of us will experience this.

The simple fact is: There are colleagues who have decided not to travel to Japan, but the number of accredited media for equestrian sport is still exceeding the number of places available in the VMC and photo positions due to capacity being cut to accommodate Covid-19 countermeasures. The booking system will be, next to all the other inconveniences, the biggest threat for the working equestrian media in Tokyo. As of now, there will not be day passes for everyone.

The FEI is working to mitigate this problem proactively and there is a constant exchange between Lausanne and Tokyo to find solutions. Nevertheless, hoping to get the QR-code sent that allows you to enter the venue the next day will be part of our daily anxieties.

It became crystal clear to us last week that we have no chance to get influence on the organizing committee’s ideas of how to handle the situation as it is regulated by the Japanese authorities Covid-19 countermeasures.

There are a couple of things that we like to remind you to:

  1. Please make sure that you, besides all the different technical problems every one of us is facing when trying to work on the different platforms (ICON, ADS, AMS, CLO …), try to meet the deadlines. And if you have missed the deadlines stipulated in the checklist – keep doing the tasks, they all need to be fulfilled before entering Japan.
  2. From our experience we can tell that the AMS (accommodation) is an absolute mess which makes things even worse. Since having an accommodation granted is the basis for lots of paperwork that needs to be done before flying to Tokyo. Friday 11th of June an email was sent out to all accredited media without a booked accommodation or an approved accommodation. Two emails from pressoperations@tokyo2020.jp Tokyo 2020 Press Accommodation Program: Access Link and a following email with the login and password. There were still rooms available, see FB post about the different locations from Friday 11th June.
  3. The activity plan – We hope everybody has realized that it should always include all possible places you may visit during your first 14 days in Japan (which are in fact not that many for EP and EPS accredited press).
  4. The booking system for day passes comes live on the 15th of July. To have a chance – not a guarantee – you need to book all your passes in the app as soon as possible. We cannot stress this hard enough, download the app and book them all no later than on the day it opens.
  5. Certain countries, at the moment among others the UK, are on a red list for Japan. That means people entering from the UK need to undergo a strict 6 days quarantine, regardless if they have the negative test or are fully vaccinated.
  6. Obviously, the Japanese government is more determined to let no one enter the country who hasn’t got all the demanded paperwork (Yes, papers also, not everything is digital!) at hand when arriving at Tokyo Haneda/Narita airport. ‘Be prepared for many hours (currently around 4 hours) after landing for paperwork, Covid-test and accreditation.

 

The 3rd version of the playbook is due to be published next week. Until then we would like to remind you of our checklist. The FEI will publish its own checklist soon on their website, we were told.

We would have wanted to provide you with better information. But unfortunately, things are the way they are. It’s like in showjumping; if the pole is down, it is down. No discussion.

Best wishes,

KimJonJan

Members going to Tokyo – request for flight information

Published on Tokyo 2020 Press Operations 17th May directed to all accredited members of the press. This is one of the many tasks mentioned in the checklist published earlier in May, Link here.

Request for early input of arrival flight information into ADS

Please allow us to extend our sincere gratitude towards your understanding and support for the delivery of a safe and secure Games.

As border control measures for COVID-19, Japan is currently limiting the number of people entering the country which may cause difficultly for arrival of Games stakeholders this summer.

Early flight bookings and information input into ADS (Arrivals and Departures Information System) was requested in the recent Playbooks V2 – Stakeholder Briefings. To ensure all Games stakeholders’ arrival, it is necessary to collect arrival flight information early as possible for coordination with related government agencies.

Therefore, although the recommended deadline for inputting into the ADS is 10 June for the Olympics and 30 June for the Paralympics, we strongly request that you input your arrival flight information (flight number, arrival date/time, arrival airport for flights already booked or for desired flights) by 27 May. Necessary documents for ADS such as User Account Request Form and spreadsheet are on the Press Operations Extranet.

This is an indispensable matter to ensure all Games stakeholders’ arrival, and furthermore for the delivery of a safe and secure Games. We thank you for your kind cooperation.

Please note, if required information is not input, you may have a difficulty upon securing valid flights due to strict immigration restrictions enforced based on the epidemic prevention measures by the Japanese Government.

Best regards, Tokyo 2020 Arrivals and Departures Team
Email: and_press@tokyo2020.jp