UAE Show Jumping Team Opens Aachen Campaign
First Step On Road To Los Angeles
The UAE Show Jumping Team began its qualification campaign for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games at the FEI World Championships in Aachen, Germany, which run from 11 to 23 August 2026.
The FEI World Championships are being staged at Allianz Park in Aachen's Soers district from 11 to 23 August 2026, hosting six of the FEI's seven disciplines: jumping, dressage, para dressage, eventing, driving and vaulting. Show jumping runs from 19 to 23 August 2026, while the seventh discipline, endurance, is held separately at Butheeb International Endurance Village near Abu Dhabi from 14 to 20 December 2026.
Aachen marks the first opportunity of the current cycle for national teams to earn qualification points toward Los Angeles 2028, making the championship an early marker in what is expected to be a multi-year campaign for the UAE programme. The squad will also compete at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games, staged at the JRA Equestrian Park in Tokyo from 19 September to 4 October 2026, giving riders back-to-back major championship exposure within a matter of weeks.
Al Marzooqi Leads An Experienced Squad
The UAE team includes Omar Abdulaziz Al Marzooqi riding Enjoy de la Mure, Abdullah Humaid Al Muhairi with Hudson de Vains, Humaid Abdullah Al Muhairi aboard Foncetti vd Heffinck, and Salem Ahmed Al Suwaidi on Flonflon. Al Marzooqi became the first Emirati rider to medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018, at the age of fifteen, and later served as the UAE's flag bearer at the Paris 2024 Olympics, where he also reached the individual final. In the same year, he became the first UAE rider to receive the Longines FEI Rising Star Award, and his individual silver medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games adds further weight to the squad's collective international record.
Final combinations for the competition will be confirmed closer to the event, following the standard horse inspection process that precedes every FEI championship. Young riders Mohammad Saeed Al Ghurair and Mabkhout Owaida Alkirbi join the delegation to contest the dedicated Young Riders competitions, including the STAWAG-Prize and the Prize of Sparkasse team competition, underlining a wider effort within the UAE programme to develop the next generation of show jumping talent alongside its established championship performers.
Funnell Returns As Chef d'Équipe
British horseman William Funnell returns as Chef d'Équipe after overseeing the squad's European campaign earlier in the season. "Every rider has earned their place on this team through consistent performances and hard work throughout the season. Championship competition is unlike any other. Success comes from preparation, trust in your horse and producing four solid performances when it matters most," Funnell said. He added that the standard in Aachen would be exceptionally high, but said the group had already shown it capable of competing with the best nations in the sport, framing the championship as both an immediate test and the first chapter of a longer Olympic journey for the programme.
The team's presence in Aachen reflects the UAE's continued investment in developing a strong pool of equestrian athletes and horses capable of competing consistently on the international stage, an effort that spans grassroots development through to the funding and support structures behind the senior championship squad. Allianz Park's Soers arena, one of the sport's most historic venues, has staged major FEI championships and the long-running CHIO Aachen show for decades, giving competitors from newer international programmes like the UAE's a proving ground against some of the deepest and most experienced show jumping nations in the world.
With qualification places for Los Angeles 2028 still to be decided across this cycle, results from Aachen will feed directly into how the federation plans the remainder of the team's championship schedule through to the Asian Games in Tokyo and beyond. For a squad blending Al Marzooqi's Olympic and Asian Games pedigree with less experienced riders still building their own championship résumés, the coming fortnight in Germany represents an early but significant test of how far the programme has progressed since Paris 2024.
The horse inspection process, standard practice ahead of every FEI championship, will take place in the days immediately before the show jumping competition begins on 19 August 2026, giving Funnell and his team a final opportunity to confirm the combinations best placed to represent the country once the jumping phase gets under way. Selection at this stage of the Olympic cycle carries added significance, since results in Aachen will feed directly into the qualification standing the UAE programme carries into its subsequent championship commitments this year and next.
The federation's decision to field a squad spanning multiple generations, from Al Marzooqi's established championship record through to the Young Riders contingent, mirrors an approach adopted by several longer-established show jumping nations, where senior and developmental riders are given exposure to the same championship environment simultaneously. For a programme still building its own body of championship experience relative to Europe's dominant show jumping nations, that structure is intended to accelerate the development of riders who may not yet be ready to contest senior team medals but stand to benefit significantly from competing in the same arena and under the same conditions as those who are.