An Indonesian sports event since 1948, PON (Pekan Olah Raga Nasional) or Indonesian Olympiad, has been hosted in many provinces across Indonesia with increasing attention and participants. This coming September (1-14), Indonesia will embrace PON XVI 2004 Sumsel in Southern Sumatra province and Palembang, its capital city. Interesting statistics to be added to PON history this year - it is the first PON event to be held outside Java since 1957 and the largest PON event welcoming 5,660 athletes and 2,830 officials from 30 provinces of Indonesia as they compete in 41 sports with 607 events.
An equestrian sport is included for the 2004 PON Games. The riders will be competing in three equestrian disciplines - Dressage, Showjumping and Eventing (One Star*).
Nine Indonesian provinces are sending their teams to participate in this important event. To qualify, the riders went through the selection process by participating in the series of the qualifying competitions during the period from January till June 2004. The equestrian sport is not equally developed in all Indonesian provinces and some of them do not have their own equestrian riders. ECI worked closely with the provinces representatives to help to prepare a team for each province interested in developing of the equestrian sport.
More Facts: The equestrian events will be held on September 2-6. The games will follow by the Muba Grand Prix (3 disciplines) on September 7-8. 95 horses and 60 riders will take part in the equestrian events. Horses traveled to Sumatra by chartered plane (1 hour cargo flight) and 3 hours of driving or by road (30 hours driving, including 2 hours by ferry) The facilities were specifically built for this event.
