CANADIAN Olympic champion Eric Lamaze, in an open letter on his social media, criticised the show at Lier in Belgium last week, sharing his disappointment over the large number of entries in classes and the casual approach to Covid-19 safety measures.

Last Friday, July 24th, he wrote: “Today is a sad day. We all were looking forward to spending the week at Lier but in the end, I decided I cannot continue to compete here and support this show. I will not participate at a show that uses a 1.45m €4,000 speed class with 252 riders in it to qualify for the ranking class the following day. This morning after the show started, they decided to divide the class into three different groups, each jumping three different courses for this one class. This means that a rider can have a slow clear round and still doesn’t qualify to compete in any rankings classes anymore. That is not right and doesn’t make any sense!