Longines Global Champions Tour 2026: Venue Guide
Twenty Seasons, Seventeen Stages
2026 marks a landmark year for the Longines Global Champions Tour: the twentieth season of the LGCT and the tenth anniversary of its team companion, the Global Champions League (GCL). Across four continents — Asia, Europe, the Americas, and now Africa — the 2026 calendar spans seventeen stages, each staged as a CSI5* event, the top classification recognised by the FEI.
The season opens in Doha and closes with the GC Playoffs in Riyadh, taking in iconic cities and destinations along the way, including the historic first-ever LGCT stage in Cairo, at the foot of the Pyramids of Giza. Individual riders compete across the season for the LGCT Championship, while six-rider teams battle in parallel for the GCL Super Cup, with the two threads converging at the season's climax. Season-wide prize money across the 2026 Tour exceeds €36,000,000 (US$39,100,000), reflecting the scale the Tour has reached two decades after its founding. Longines remains title sponsor throughout, with the partnership recently extended through 2032, underscoring the Tour's continued growth as show jumping's most recognised global circuit, often likened in the sport to Formula 1 for its combination of elite competition, iconic venues, and season-long team and individual titles.
The Longines Global Champions Tour was founded by Dutch former Olympic show jumper Jan Tops in 2006, built around a simple premise: bring the world's best riders and horses to compete in the world's most iconic cities. The GCL followed a decade later in 2016, adding a franchise-style team format built around six-rider squads, each required to include at least one U25 talent. Over the past 20 years, the Tour has expanded from a handful of European stops to a genuinely global calendar spanning Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and now Africa, while retaining Valkenswaard, its original home, as a fixture of the season.
The most recent season closed at the 2025 GC Playoffs, held at Prague's O2 Arena from 20 to 23 November 2025, with combined prize money exceeding €11,400,000 (US$12,400,000) across the week. In the GCL Super Cup Final, Rome Gladiators — fielding Peder Fredricson, Yuri Mansur and Emanuele Gaudiano — won on a team total of 12 penalties in 215.28 seconds, with Valkenswaard United taking silver and New York Empire bronze, while Basel Cosmopolitans finished fourth, Prague Lions fifth, and Riesenbeck International sixth.
In the individual LGCT Super Grand Prix, Abdel Saïd and Bonne Amie won by just 0.02 seconds over Simon Delestre and Cayman Jolly Jumper, one of the closest finishes in the class's history, with Scott Brash and Hello Chadora Lady completing the podium in third on his fortieth birthday. Over 40,000 spectators attended across the four days of competition. The result closed out the 2025 season and sets the baseline heading into 2026, when the GC Playoffs return to Riyadh for the first time since 2024, after two years hosted in Prague's O2 Arena.
The Seventeen Stages
Doha (Qatar | 04-March-26 to 07-March-26 | CSI5*)
Miami Beach (United States | 03-April-26 to 05-April-26 | CSI5*)
Mexico City (Mexico | 16-April-26 to 19-April-26 | CSI5*)
Shanghai (China | 01-May-26 to 03-May-26 | CSI5*)
Madrid (Spain | 15-May-26 to 17-May-26 | CSI5*)
Cannes (France | 04-June-26 to 06-June-26 | CSI5*)
St. Tropez (France | 11-June-26 to 13-June-26 | CSI5*)
Paris (France | 19-June-26 to 21-June-26 | CSI5*)
Monaco (Monaco | 02-July-26 to 04-July-26 | CSI5*)
Riesenbeck (Germany | 16-July-26 to 19-July-26 | CSI5*)
London (United Kingdom | 07-August-26 to 09-August-26 | CSI5*)
Valkenswaard (Netherlands | 04-September-26 to 06-September-26 | CSI5*)
The event: The thirteenth stage of the 2026 season, staged at the Longines Tops International Arena, regarded within the Tour as its spiritual home, where the identity of both the LGCT and GCL was first shaped. The weekend spans CSI5*, CSI2*, CSI1*, and CSIYH classes, drawing one of the largest and most consistently sold-out crowds anywhere on the calendar in a sweeping grass arena built by Jan Tops himself.
Official backing: No head-of-state or federation launch is associated with this stage. Valkenswaard is organised directly by LGCT and GCL founder and president Jan Tops at his own purpose-built venue and is treated within the Tour as its longest-running and most established fixture rather than a newly backed addition, unlike Cairo's government-led debut this same season.
2025 Winners (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Fourth) — Team and Individual: At the 2025 GCL of Valkenswaard: Gold, Prague Lions powered by Czech Equestrian Team; Silver, Valkenswaard United; Bronze, Scandinavian Vikings; Fourth not confirmed in published results. At the 2025 LGCT Grand Prix of Valkenswaard: Gold, Harrie Smolders on Monaco; Silver, Nicola Philippaerts on Katanga v/h Dingeshof; Bronze, Gilles Thomas on Qalista DN; Fourth, Andreas Schou on Napoli vah Nederassenthof.
Rider entries once announced: Rider entries for Valkenswaard are to be confirmed closer to the event. GCC-linked riders confirmed at the season/team level include Sheikh Ali bin Khalid Al Thani (Qatar, Doha Falcons) and Dalma Malhas (Saudi Arabia, Cairo Pharaohs); individual Valkenswaard entries for either rider are not yet confirmed.
Vienna (Austria | 24-September-26 to 27-September-26 | CSI5*)
Rome (Italy | 09-October-26 to 11-October-26 | CSI5*)
Cairo (Egypt | 22-October-26 to 24-October-26 | CSI5*)
The event: The first-ever LGCT stage in Egypt and the wider MENA/Africa region, with riders and horses jumping in front of the Pyramids of Giza, one of the most recognised backdrops in world sport. The stage forms part of the Tour's landmark twentieth-anniversary, seventeen-stage 2026 season. It marks the Tour's historic expansion onto African soil for the first time, following stops across Europe, Asia and the Americas earlier in the season. It sits between Rome and the Rabat Finals in the late-season calendar, ahead of the Riyadh GC Playoffs.
Official backing: The Cairo leg was launched with senior Egyptian government involvement, including Prime Minister Dr Mostafa Madbouly and leadership from the Egyptian military academy, who were both present at the official announcement. LGCT founder and president Jan Tops has framed the stage as a new and historic chapter for the Tour, describing competing in front of the Pyramids as both a sporting milestone and a cultural moment for the sport's global expansion into the Middle East and North Africa.
2025 Winners (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Fourth) — Team and Individual: At the 2025 GCL Super Cup Final, held in Prague: Gold, Rome Gladiators; Silver, Valkenswaard United; Bronze, New York Empire; Fourth, Basel Cosmopolitans. At the 2025 LGCT Super Grand Prix, also in Prague: Gold, Abdel Saïd on Bonne Amie; Silver, Simon Delestre on Cayman Jolly Jumper; Bronze, Scott Brash on Hello Chadora Lady; Fourth, Gerrit Nieberg on Ping Pong van de Lentamel.
Rider entries once announced: Rider entries for Cairo are to be confirmed closer to the event.
Rabat — Finals (Morocco | 30-October-26 to 01-November-26 | CSI5*)
Prize money: over €10,500,000 (US$11,400,000) distributed across the LGCT Finals and season standings.
Riyadh — GC Playoffs (Saudi Arabia | 18-November-26 to 21-November-26 | CSI5*)
Prize money: over €11,400,000 (US$12,400,000), including the €10,000,000 (US$10,900,000) GCL Super Cup and the €1,250,000 (US$1,360,000) LGCT Super Grand Prix.
