Top 'Olympic' job for Hartpury Deputy Principal
Friday, January 25, 2008
Deputy Principal of Hartpury College and Equestrian Event Director, Amanda Bond, is heading-off to Asia in February to take-up the prestigious post of ‘Chief of Paralympic Services’, in readiness for this years Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Hartpury College has reached an agreement with the Olympic organisers whereby Amanda will shortly be seconded from her post at Hartpury and join the Equestrian Committee of the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games based in Hong Kong, to share her technical knowledge and expertise.
Amanda has extensive experience in running high profile international equestrian events, including the FEI World Para Dressage Championships hosted by Hartpury College in 2007, the FEI Mitsubishi Motors Hartpury International Horse Trials (CIC***/CCI**/CCI*) and the Hartpury Festival of Dressage incorporating CDI***, CPDI*** and Premier League.
Hartpury has been working in partnership with the Chinese for some time, welcoming and training a number of officials during its various international equestrian events. The largest visiting delegation was during the 2007 World Para Dressage Championships when twenty members of the Equestrian Committee, responsible for organising and hosting the equestrian events of the 2008 Olympic and Paralympics, came on a fact-finding mission to observe how a major FEI Championships was run.
Commenting on her appointment, Amanda Bond said: “It is a tremendous honour to be asked to work with the Chinese on such a prestigious project. The role of Chief of Paralympic Services will involve working with all of the area managers to guarantee their readiness for the Paralympic Equestrian events, and to ensure we provide the very best of services for athletes, officials and visitors to the Games.
This is a wonderful legacy of all the hard work that Hartpury College and Great Britain put into last year’s World Championships.”
The Olympic events, including eventing, dressage and showjumping will take place at the Hong Kong Jockey Club in Sha tin from 9-21 August. The Paralympic dressage will run at the same venue from 7-11 September.
