Eventing chief relieved after plug pulled on 2020 Olympics

The initial plan had been to fly the horses to Aachen in Germany for a week of quarantine, during which they would be assessed by a Japanese ministry vet; from there, the horses and Irish team were to cross the border into Belgium where they would fly from Liège to Tokyo, with a quick refuel in Doha to break up the 18-hour flight.

Sally Corscadden breathed a deep sigh of relief when she heard the IOC announcement regarding Olympic postponement.

Corscadden, the eventing high-performance director at Horse Sport Ireland, had been tying herself up in knots in recent days and weeks as the job of getting four horses and the accompanying Irish eventing team of 15 people to Japan in mid-July became more and more complicated.