![]() Logo of Global Champions Tour | |
Highest governing body | International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) |
---|---|
Nicknames | Show jumping |
Characteristics | |
Contact | Global Champions Tour official site |
Team members | Individual |
Mixed-sex | yes |
Type | outdoor/indoor |
Equipment | horse, horse tack |
Venue | Generally outdoor arena with dirt or similar footing suitable for the horse |
The Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) is an annual pre-eminent individual 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 organization 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] Title Partner and Official Timekeeper Longines has been part of the global circuit since 2013. [3] Also, the fashion brand Massimo Dutti is a stylish presence on the Longines Global Champions Tour and GCL.
Allowed to participate in Global Champions Tour (GCT) events are:
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. [4]
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).
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 Placing | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
Points Scored | 40 | 37 | 35 | 33 | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 |
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.
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. [5]
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. [6]
listed in alphabetical order of the respective host country
The legs of the 2024 Longines Global Champions Tour are: [7]
Former venues of the Longines Global Champions Tour are:
Jessica Kürten is an Irish equestrian who competes in the sport of show jumping.
Elizabeth Madden is an American Olympic champion equestrian competing in show jumping. She has two Olympic golds and one silver in team jumping, and an individual bronze. She won the FEI Show Jumping World Cup twice; won two silvers and two bronzes at World Championships; and won two golds, one silver and two bronzes at the Pan American Games. She was the first American to break into the international top three show jumping ranking, and the first woman to win over one million dollars in show jumping prize money.
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The 2011 Global Champions Tour was the 6th staging of the Global Champions Tour (GCT), an important international show jumping competition series. The series was held mainly in Europe, three competitions was held outside of Europe. All competitions was endowed at least 285000 €. All GCT events was held as CSI 5*.
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Scott Brash MBE is a Scottish showjumper. He began riding the horse Hello Sanctos in early 2012. They competed as part of the British Team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London winning a gold medal in the team jumping event. In 2015 he became the first rider to win show jumping's Rolex Grand Slam, all three of the sport's most prestigious events in a single year, earning the sport's biggest individual prize of 1m Euros (£735,000).
Kent Farrington is a professional show jumping athlete for the United States.
Jessica Mendoza is one of the UK's top female equestrian athletes, who broke into the world's top 100 riders, and into the top 10 British showjumping riders in Spring 2015. She is also a regular contributor to the British monthly magazine PONY.
Bertram Allen is an Irish show jumping rider. Originally from Wexford, he has won international medals at the pony, junior, and senior level. He won the opening round of the 2014 World Equestrian Games in Normandy at age 19, receiving international recognition. Allen is the youngest winner of a Grand Prix on the Longines Global Champions Tour, and was a team gold medalist at the 2017 European Championship in Gothenburg.
Cortes 'C', or Cortes, was a horse ridden by four-time U.S. Olympian Beezie Madden in show jumping. He was owned by Abigail Wexner. The pair have won many competitions and have competed in the Olympics together, including being named the 2014 United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) International Horse of the Year.
Daniel Bluman is a Colombian-born Israeli Olympic show jumping rider. In July 2019 Bluman, as part of Israel's four-rider squad, qualified to represent Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
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