Global Champions Tour

The Global Champions Tour (GCT) is an annual show jumping series that comprises 14 rounds of competition hosted around the world. It brings together the top 30 riders in the FEI Jumping World Rankings.

It was founded in 2006 by the Olympic gold medalist Jan Tops. Member of the Monaco royal family Charlotte Casiraghi is Honorary President of the Jumping International de Monte-Carlo leg of the tour and regular high-profile competitors include Athina Onassis, Georgina Bloomberg, Jessica Springsteen, Sofia Abramovich, Guillaume Canet and Jennifer Gates.

In 2014, overall LGCT Championship winner Scott Brash (see Rules below) received just under €300,000, making it the biggest single prize in any of the three Olympic equestrian disciplines (dressage, eventing and showjumping). During this season, Brash won over €852,000 in total prize money [1] making the Longines Global Champions Tour one of, if not the, richest equestrian sporting series in the world.

Since 2007, all LGCT events have been held as CSI 5*, which means that under FEI rules they are championship-level events. The LGCT classes are run under FEI rules but the governing body has no part in the organisation of the series, aside from ratifying the schedule. The LGCT is not an FEI series like the World Cup or the Nations Cup competitions.

The television broadcaster is Eurosport.

Rules

The overall standings are determined by the placement of the rider in the Grand Prix competitions of the Longines Global Champions Tour. The scoring is carried out as follows:

Competition Placing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Points Scored 40 37 35 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 12 11 10 9 8 7 6

Points won by competitors who are tied are added together and then divided equally. Fifty percent of the rider's best results count towards their overall LGCT ranking classification, thus with 14 events in 2014, seven of the riders best results count towards their overall ranking and any additional weakest scores are dropped.

In 2008 and 2009, the winner was determined in a separate final. The top 25 riders of this season overall standings were allowed to participate in the final.

In 2006 and 2007, and again from 2010, the winner was determined by the overall standings of the season.

Winners

Year Champion Nation
2006 Ludo Philippaerts  Belgium
2007 Albert Zoer  Netherlands
2008 Jessica Kürten  Ireland
2009 Michel Robert  France
2010 Marcus Ehning  Germany
2011 Edwina Tops-Alexander  Australia
2012 Edwina Tops-Alexander  Australia
2013 Scott Brash  United Kingdom
2014 Scott Brash  United Kingdom
2015 Luciana Diniz  Portugal

In 2013, Britain's Scott Brash became the first rider to do the double and win the final Grand Prix and the Championship in one go – all on his 28th birthday (23 November). Brash, riding his 2012 Olympic gold medal-winning horse Hello Sanctos, netted €443,000 in prize money for the two wins.[2] The favourite for the title win, Germany's Christian Ahlmann, was relegated to second place after collecting a single time fault in the second round of the Grand Prix. Though Brash had been named season Champion before his final jump-off round, he held his nerve to take on Ludger Beerbaum and Marcus Ehning to claim victory with a fast clear round. Hello Sanctos was also named 2013 LGCT Horse of the Year, lowering just one rail throughout his time on the LGCT circuit that season.

In 2014, having been World Number One rider for a year (the first time a rider had been World Number One this long since Marcus Ehning in 2006) Scott Brash successfully defended his title for a second consecutive year having won a record three Grand Prix (London, Cannes and Cascais-Estoril) with Hello Sanctos during that season. Germany's Ludger Beerbaum had led coming into the final Grand Prix in Doha, but due to illness his top horse Chiara could not compete and he instead rode the less experienced Zinedine, collecting 17 faults in the first round and eventually dropping to 3rd in the overall Championship. For the second time in his career, Swede Rolf-Goran Bengtsson had to accept second place in the Championship despite finishing on the same points as the winner, as he did not have as many season wins (Rolf finished 2nd to Edwina Tops-Alexander in 2012). However, Bengtsson put in a spectacular performance in the final Grand Prix to win with his stallion Casall ASK.[3]

Venues

listed in alphabetical order of the respective host country

The stations of the 2016 Longines Global Champions Tour are:[4]

Former venues of the Longines Global Champions Tour are:

Sponsors

The title sponsor and official timekeeper is Longines. Oother associated sponsors include Qatar, Massimo Dutti, FedEx, Gucci, BMW, Glock, HSBC, Merit Capital, Taittinger, Audi, Volkswagen, VDL Groep, Airbus Group, Maybourne Hotel Group, Sapinda, ICURAS and LGT.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.globalchampionstour.com
  2. ↑ http://www.globalchampionstour.com/events/2013/doha/news/962/brash-makes-it-a-birthday-double-winning-championship-and-doha-grand-prix/
  3. ↑ http://www.globalchampionstour.com/news/2014/1200/world-no1-scott-brash-narrowly-retains-his-championship-title-in-a-spectacular-finale/
  4. ↑ "Global Champions Tour".
  5. ↑ "Chantilly Jumping 7th leg of LGCT".

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/22/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.