Bozhurishte hosts successful launch of the EEF Evolution Team Competition

This weekend Bozhurishte played host to the first-ever EEF Evolution team competition for Jumping. The new concept series announced by the EEF last week is focused on providing team formats at lower levels of international competition, and, by allowing teams to be formed of mixed nationalities, creating more opportunities for athletes to ride within a team.

The EEF Evolution team competition is currently offered for the Children's tour, Medium tour and Big Tour and all three categories were well contested in Bozhurishte. Despite initial fears of bad weather and storms, the sun made an appearance on Friday to start the event with the Medium tour in which athletes from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Greece and North Macedonia all took part. The teams had the opportunity to name themselves, and the class was won by “Thin Red Line” composed of Philip Velev, Desislava Milanova and Eliza Cholakova. Desislava and Elisa at just 15 years old were some of the youngest competitors in the class and special mention to Niya Stoimenova with HINA B (team Deep Purple), Alexandra Arabadzhieva with VALARGO (Bozhurishte Lions) and Eliza Cholakova with ELDA BALOU whom all jumped double-clear across the two rounds.

The weekend continued with the Children and Big Tour competitions, which saw great teamwork and solidarity between riders. The Children’s competition produced a win for the team “Powerpuff Girls”; Ana Maria Diaconu, Mara Elena Constantinescu and Briana Elena Vasile. It was the first team competition for any of these riders, showing the importance of this new Evolution concept to offer a chance to be on a Team and learn from each other.

Meanwhile, the Big Tour was won by “Master Mind” formed of Ivaylo Bonev, Filip Velev, Angel Niagolov and Ionel Bucur. The course offered a fair test with no eliminations throughout the weekend whilst still posing good questions of the combinations, with the long stride option towards the double catching out many riders and making just one double-clear from the Big Tour class. Importantly, the EEF Evolution team competitions are designed not only to develop the horses and riders, but also the upcoming officials within the sport and provide them with opportunities to build their experience and education.

Course designer Gueorgui Gueorguiev said; “I feel very privileged that I was given the chance to be the course designer for the first leg of the new Evolution league organised by the Bozhurishte CSI and EEF. It’s an honour to be part of this great idea, from the EEF, as it's not so easy to gain experience for new incoming course designers and this can give me a big lift and help me with my next step, developing my career as a course designer”. 

EEF Sport Development Manager Teodor Sheytanov said; “We have been discussing this new concept for some time and it was wonderful to see the idea come to life this weekend in Bozhurishte. The enthusiasm from the athletes and organisers was brilliant to see, and we were able to achieve the Evolution Series’ true aim by offering athletes their first-ever chance to compete as a team and gain valuable experience for the future. We are really looking forward to the next event in Lipica, Slovenia, in a few weeks.”