Iranian equestrians eyeing ‘decent finish’ in Asian Games
By Sadeq Dehqan
Staff writer
The Iranian equestrians will be chasing a “decent finish” in the jumping event of the Hangzhou Asian Games in China, said Mohsen Zakeri, the head of the country’s horse-riding team.
“I hope we’ll collect the required points for a medal in the Games or at least finish in the top five of the competition,” Zakeri told Iran Daily of the Iranian contestants, who will be involved in the team jumping contest today, before being in action in Friday’s individual event.
Naghmeh Khanjani, Omid Gharibi, and Masoud Mokarinejad are the three Iranian horse riders in Hangzhou.
Strict quarantine rules had kept the Iranians from participating with their own horses in the Games since Doha 2006, Zakeri said, adding: “Since Iran is regarded a country with high veterinary risks, it is necessary to quarantine horses for a certain period before the Games. That’s why we had to come up with a list of our riders who had horses abroad and selected the top ones for the event so that our representatives would ride their own horses in in Hangzhou.”
“Two of the horses were in the Netherlands and the other one was in the United Arab Emirates. We staged three training camps in the Netherlands under Iran coach Esfandiar Houshmand and the equestrians took part in several jumping CSI tournaments,” said the Iranian.
It has been nearly three decades since Iran last won an equestrian medal at the Asian Games – a team jumping bronze in Hiroshima 1994 for the country’s four-man side, comprising Shahrokh Moqaddam, Kazem and Ezzatollah Vojdani, and Davoud Bahrami.
“The team has worked a lot to prepare for this year’s event, not to mention the Iranian contestants will have the chance to ride their own horses at the TL Equestrian Centre, which is why I believe we can hope for a decent finish in the Games,” said Zakeri, who added that proper measures – including serum therapy – have been taken in recent days to make sure the horses would recover from the exhaustion caused by the 16-hour flight to China.