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Bob Ellis- the task of building the London Olympics show jumping course.

British show jumping course builder, Bob Ellis has a lot of pride and pressure as he has been chosen to build all the jumping courses for the London Olympic Games this year. This also includes the jumping test for the Eventing at the Olympic venue in Greenwich Park.

Ellis already has an impressive resumé that includes building for the European Jumping Championships in 2011.

He has an experienced international team who will assist him with this massive task. The team includes: Kelvin Bywater (GBR), Stephen Renouard (GBR), Bernardo Costa Cabral (POR) and Alan Wade (IRL).

Bob Ellis attained FEI International status as a course designer in 1989, and became an FEI Candidate International Judge in 1999. In 2004 he was appointed an Official International Course Designer by the FEI.
 
“The footing for the jumping at the London Olympics will be laid out 8 weeks in advance, first with a stone base surface, then with a water system, and finally followed by the main surface” Bywater said.

Ellis mentioned, “They expect to have about 75 riders, 27 nations and 16-17 teams who will compete in an arena that holds 23,000 spectators".

The riders will have a training day followed by two days of team competitions, a rest day and then a final day for individual riders. There will be two rounds on the final day with the top 25 riders returning to jump in the second round.

Asked how he got the job as course designer for the London Olympics, Ellis said the following: “ I submitted an application in January 2010 and was asked to give a presentation with jump designs in March 2010. I didn’t find out until May 2010 while in South Africa that I was confirmed as the official builder for the London Olympics”. He went on to say “I told the team about the news and then went with Bywater to London ‘site-seeing’ and to get ideas for jump designs”.

After that they went to another presentation to finalize the jump designs. They chose 30 jumps and decided on the material to be used. British show jumping got the tender to build the jumps. They are currently being manufactured. Only four people have seen the course plan which has been completed (Frank Rothenberger-Technical delegate, Bywater-Jump designer, John Doney- Ground judge and Ellis).

The minimum width for a jumping cup is 18 millimetres and Ellis said he plans to use this size throughout the Olympic course.

Asked whom he thought would be a favorite to win, Ellis smiled and said “there are so many top riders out there, it could be anyone- but it would be great if we could get a medal!”

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