World Equestrian Games Ready for Hurricane, Competition

(ATR) Great weather for the opening of the eighth World Equestrian Games in Tryon, North Carolina. That’s expected to change by the weekend.

Hurricane Florence, looming off the coast of North Carolina, is expected to bring heavy rains at the least to western North Carolina in a couple of days. Tryon is about 250 miles west of where the storm will make landfall on Friday.

The premier event every four years on the calendar of FEI, the International Equestrian Federation, the WEG includes nearly two weeks of competition in every FEI discipline.

"When it comes to contingency plans, we have those in place," says FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibanez.

"This is not the first time we have had adverse weather situations. This is something we are used to. It’s what we do."

The Tryon International Equestrian Centeris was built with 1,288 permanent stalls, all able to withstand high winds. The center was used last year as an equestrian refuge during Hurrican Irma.

The 2018 edition of the WEG has drawn 800 riders to Tryon from 71 nations. More than 500,000 spectators are expected.

Opening ceremony was held Tuesday night with the first competition this week in dressage, endurance, eventing and reining. Qualification for the Tokyo Olympics is on the line in some events.

All the horses and athletes for this week’s events have arrived, so the advancing weather won’t keep competitors away. But others will be arriving over the weekend as the storm strikes.

Hotel rooms in the region will be tough to find with WEG visitors securing many of them already and hurricane evacuees snagging the rest.

The WEG was last hosted in the U.S. in Lexington, Kentucky in 2010.

IOC member and FEI President Ingmar DeVos is overseeing the WEG for the first time as federation leader after serving as secretary general.

Reported by Ed Hula.