Israel’s first Olympic equestrian team will gear up for a trip to Tokyo this month. The team composed of Ashlee Bond, Elad Yaniv, and Danielle Waldman will compete without teammate Daniel Bluman, who was barred from the Games this week.
Colombian-born Bluman was told that he is unable to compete because his horse, Gemma, is listed as American rather than Israeli. Bluman requested assistance from the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) to correct this error but was denied, so Bluman was replaced by Teddy Vlok, who will ride Amsterdam.
The team, with Bluman, qualified for the Olympics in July 2019 with a win at the Olympic Jumping Qualifier at Maxima Park in Moscow.
American-Israeli Bond is one of the members of the team who will continue to the Games in the coming weeks. The 36-year-old Bond is Christian, although her father is Jewish and was born in Haifa, and she became an Israeli citizen in 2018.
The final member of the team is 43-year-old Elad Yaniv. Yaniv has had 944 starts and 26 wins in his long equestrian career. Yaniv first sat on a horse at the age of seven months with his father in Israel and at age six he began equestrian. At age 16 he took up equestrian jumping professionally, which included taking a job as a nurse and rider in a sales stall near Arnhem, Netherlands. In addition to competing, Yaniv also runs Elan Yaniv Showjumping stables in Willich, Germany.