(ATR) Princess Haya will serve another four years as president of the International Equestrian Federation, FEI.
The IOC member from Jordan won Friday’s election in a landslide, capturing 90 out of 124 votes at the FEI General Assembly in Taipei.
The four-year incumbent was thought to face serious challenges from Henk Rottinghuis of the Netherlands and Sven Holmberg from Sweden. That proved anything but the case.
Holmberg won 23 votes and Rottinghuis,11.
"I never really realized how many wonderful friends and supporters I have," Haya said in her victory speech. "This has been a really extraordinary year for me and I am truly humbled by what you have done for me."
Also Friday, Haya announced her First and Second VPs. John McEwen of Great Britain will replace Holmberg as First VP, and Pablo Mayorga of Argentina will take over from outgoing Second VP Chris Hodson of New Zealand.
The trio will serve through 2014, at which point a two-term limit will force Haya to give up office.
Unity, Anti-Doping Front-of-Mind for Haya’s Second Term
Haya said prior to the election she plans to deliver a more unified FEI with greater athlete representation and an Olympic Solidarity-style funding program, sentiments she echoed in a post-election press conference.
"I would like the next four years to be remembered for huge strides forward in the areas of development, transport and quarantine," she said. "It would be my biggest pledge to unify the FEI and to look forward to a future of growth and prosperityfor horse sport."
Both Rottinghuis and Holmberg criticized Haya’s leadership in the run-up to Friday’s election, saying she failed in her duties to meet the needs of national federations and has been too slow to globalize the sport. They also claimed the FEI lacked transparency in its decision-making, a charge Haya confronted head-on in her press conference.
"I know I was very hands on in the first four years and probably more so than many would have liked," she said. "While I admit to that and I have said there are things that I could have done differently, I felt that I had little choice in order to deliver the mandate which I had been elected on and to deal with the issues that I had to deal with which required that kind of energetic approach."
Among those issues was doping in horse sport, a challenge that met with the second landslide vote of the day.
The General Assembly unanimously approved an updated Equine Prohibited Substances List for next season in a move Haya called the biggest victory of the day.
"I know for so many people the presidential election is what will grab people’s attention," she said, "but for me and for all of us in the FEI the greatest win we had today was passing the Equine Substances List."
The mandate comes just months after a congress on the use of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs hosted by the FEI in Lausanne and outlaws NSAIDs in competition.
Written by Matthew Grayson.
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