Tokyo-bound rider Fouaad Mirza resumes competition after long Covid-19 break
Mirza has a country quota for the Tokyo Olympics, but is looking to get a personal quota to seal his spot for next year’s Games
Results don’t matter when you compete after a break of nearly six months. That was the case with Tokyo Olympics-bound Indian rider Fouaad Mirza as he participated in the Westerstede Standard Show in Germany, the first competition in eventing after the Covid-19 break, at the weekend.
Though equestrian events worldwide were suspended from March, Mirza had not competed since November 2019 as he was getting ready for his Olympic qualifying event. In that sense, finishing 51st spot in the CCI3* S event at Westerstede wasn’t a setback. It was essentially training after a long gap.
The outing astride his new horse Dajara 4 gave Mirza the confidence he can regain his best after a few more events before attempting to complete the technicality of gaining a personal quota for next year’s Tokyo Olympics. Mirza has earned the country quota and needs an individual berth to secure his ticket to the Olympics. For that, he must participate and achieve a good finish in a CCI4* Long competition well before the Olympics (July 23-August 9, 2021).
“It has been more than three months, my last competition was in France in November,” said Mirza, a double silver-medallist in the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games in eventing individual and team events.
“The first part of the competition was dressage. There were nerves going into the competition. I knew it was because I hadn’t been competing in a long time. As soon as I started to do my programme, they went away,” said Fouaad, who took to riding after seeing his father Dr Hasneyn Mirza, a equestrian veterinarian, work with horses.
Mirza had been stuck in Germany since India imposed a travel ban for flights to Europe. “I was very happy with my performance in dressage. But as a rider I showed a bit of ring rust… It was just that I went in there and rode a bit nice and quiet, where I should have asked more from the horse and gone in there to show off my horse,,” said the 28-year-old, a product of Embassy International Riding School in Bengaluru, who trains in Ganderkesee in Germany under Sandra Auffarth, a German legend who won gold (team event) and bronze (individual) in the 2012 London Olympics, besides a silver (team event) in 2016 Rio Games.
“The rest of the two days were for cross-country and show jumping. Both the horse and I performed well. The competition wasn’t very difficult and she jumped amazing. In the cross-country round, she galloped like a machine, jumped all the questions (hurdles) and did everything more than I had wished for,” said Mirza.
Mirza is preparing for more events in Europe to build up rhythm for a good performance in the CCI4*L event that would assure his place in next year’s Olympics.
“There are national shows that are coming up. There’s a show-jumping competition I am going to be competing at the weekend… another training sort of show, more for me than the horses.”
The sport too has gained by successfully organising the event amid the pandemic.
“They are going to use this show as an example to hold more shows. They might hold something in Poland in the first week of July. There is talk of something in Belgium in August… It’s looking good in terms of national and smaller competitions. A few of them are also getting the sponsors, clearances from the government, and various states to conduct the shows,” Mirza added.