Global Champions Tour

The Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) is an annual show jumping series that comprises up to 15 rounds of competition hosted around the world. It brings together the top 30 riders in the FEI Jumping World Rankings.

It was founded in 2006 by the Olympic gold medalist Jan Tops. Member of the Monaco royal family Charlotte Casiraghi is Honorary President of the Jumping International de Monte-Carlo leg of the tour and regular high-profile competitors include Athina Onassis, Georgina Bloomberg (who also owns a team which competes in the Global Champions League), Jessica Springsteen, Sofia Abramovich, Guillaume Canet and Jennifer Gates.

In 2014, overall LGCT Championship winner Scott Brash (see Rules below) received just under €300,000, making it the biggest single prize in any of the three Olympic equestrian disciplines (dressage, eventing and showjumping). During this season, Brash won over €852,000 in total prize money [1] making the Longines Global Champions Tour one of, if not the, richest equestrian sporting series in the world.

Since 2007, all LGCT events have been held as CSI 5*, which means that under FEI rules they are championship-level events. The LGCT classes are run under FEI rules but the governing body has no part in the organisation of the series, aside from ratifying the schedule. The LGCT is not an FEI series like the World Cup or the Nations Cup competitions.

The television broadcaster is Eurosport.[2]

Competition type

Allowed to participate in Global Champions Tour (GCT) events are:

  • the World Ranking Top 30. If a top-30 rider refuses to take part the competitor field is filled by the organizer with riders ranking within Top 150.
  • Wild Card owners: Wild Cards are distributed by GCT rights holders, local GCT organizers, national coaches and the FEI.

Until 2016 GCT competitions consisted of two rounds, plus a Jump-Off. The course was changed after the first round and the second round was limited to the top-18 riders of the first round or all fault-free riders if there were more than 18 zero-point-rounds. The points collected during the first round were added to the points collected during the second round.

When FEI accepted the Global Champions League as an international jumping series in 2017 the mode of the Global Champions Tour was changed:
a Global Champions League Team competition is held the day before the Global Champions Tour Grand Prix. The second round of the Global Champions League competition is the qualification out of which the top-25 riders qualify individually for the Global Champions Tour.
The Global Champions Tour competition is a single-round competition plus a Jump-Off. All riders start with zero points. The horse can be changed between the two competitions.[3]

The 2018 Global Champions League Team competition finished with a unique first-ever Super Cup in Prague, and the Spanish winning Team 'Madrid in Motion' (Eduardo Alvarez Aznar, Mikel Van Der Vleuten, Mark Houtzager).

Rules

The overall standings are determined by the placement of the rider in the Grand Prix competitions of the Longines Global Champions Tour. The scoring is carried out as follows:

Competition Placing12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
Points Scored4037353332313029282726252423222120191211109876

Points won by competitors who are tied are added together and then divided equally. Fifty percent of the rider's best results count towards their overall LGCT ranking classification, thus with 14 events in 2014, seven of the riders best results count towards their overall ranking and any additional weakest scores are dropped.

In 2008 and 2009, the winner was determined in a separate final. The top 25 riders of this season overall standings were allowed to participate in the final.

In 2006 and 2007, and again from 2010, the winner was determined by the overall standings of the season.

Winners
Year Champion Nation
2006 Ludo Philippaerts  Belgium
2007 Albert Zoer  Netherlands
2008 Jessica Kürten  Ireland
2009 Michel Robert  France
2010 Marcus Ehning  Germany
2011 Edwina Tops-Alexander  Australia
2012 Edwina Tops-Alexander  Australia
2013 Scott Brash  United Kingdom
2014 Scott Brash  United Kingdom
2015 Luciana Diniz  Portugal
2016 Rolf-Göran Bengtsson  Sweden
2017 Harrie Smolders  Netherlands
2018 Ben Maher  United Kingdom
2019 Ben Maher  United Kingdom

In 2013, Britain's Scott Brash became the first rider to do the double and win the final Grand Prix and the Championship in one go – all on his 28th birthday (23 November). Brash, riding his 2012 Olympic gold medal-winning horse Hello Sanctos, netted €443,000 in prize money for the two wins.[4]

In 2014, having been World Number One rider for a year (the first time a rider had been World Number One this long since Marcus Ehning in 2006) Scott Brash successfully defended his title for a second consecutive year having won a record three Grand Prix (London, Cannes and Cascais-Estoril) with Hello Sanctos during that season. Germany's Ludger Beerbaum had led coming into the final Grand Prix in Doha, but due to illness his top horse Chiara could not compete and he instead rode the less experienced Zinedine, collecting 17 faults in the first round and eventually dropping to 3rd in the overall Championship. For the second time in his career, Swede Rolf-Goran Bengtsson had to accept second place in the Championship despite finishing on the same points as the winner, as he did not have as many season wins (Rolf finished 2nd to Edwina Tops-Alexander in 2012). However, Bengtsson put in a spectacular performance in the final Grand Prix to win with his stallion Casall ASK.[5]

Venues

listed in alphabetical order of the respective host country

The legs of the 2020 Longines Global Champions Tour are:[6]

Former venues of the Longines Global Champions Tour are:

References
  1. http://www.globalchampionstour.com
  2. "2016 Longines Global Champions Tour! – Total Horse Channel | Equestrian TV". totalhorsechannel.com. Retrieved 2017-06-15.
  3. "Rules for the 2017 Longines Global Champions Tour" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-04-09. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-02-08. Retrieved 2014-02-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. http://www.globalchampionstour.com/news/2014/1200/world-no1-scott-brash-narrowly-retains-his-championship-title-in-a-spectacular-finale/
  6. "Season 2020".
  7. "Chantilly Jumping 7th leg of LGCT".
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