Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 22, 2021: Sri Lankan showjumper Mathilda Karlsson will be able to compete at Tokyo 2020 after all after winning a landmark ruling in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on April 20.
Karlsson, who was born in Sri Lanka but grew up in Sweden, grabbed one of the 15 individual showjumping slots for Tokyo 2020 when she competed successfully in December 2019 in three events in Villeneuve-Loubet, France - or so she thought.
But these results were subsequently declared null and void by the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) who decided retrospectively to remove these events from the race for Olympic ranking points. The FEI admitted that the French events had been included “mistakenly” as ranking events.
Karlsson appealed to the FEI tribunal but was turned down in June 2020. After that she appealed to CAS in Lausanne, Switzerland, with the support of the Sri Lanka Equestrian Association.
On Tuesday, the CAS Panel issued its decision in favour of Karlsson ruling that all competitive results between December 13, 2019 and January 26, 2020, and points won counted towards Olympic rankings, and that she be reinstated.
As a consequence of the CAS decision, Karlsson is back as rank two in the Olympic Group for South East Asia/Oceania with her horse Chopin VA and has earned her national federation an individual quota slot for the Tokyo Olympics.
Karlsson and the Sri Lanka Equestrian Association were represented by a law firm in the Netherlands who issued a statement saying: “It is a landmark decision for equestrian sports as this CAS decision illustrates that the FEI’s discretionary powers are limited and that the FEI needs to observe utmost care in approving equestrian events where ranking points are to be earned. All this is for the benefit of the riders.”
Commenting on the CAS decision, FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibanez said: “This is a very disappointing result for the FEI, but we respect the decision as we knew that mistakes were made and the CAS decision is based on that.”
