Sports
Princess Haya participated in the 2002 FEI World Equestrian Games in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia representing Jordan in show jumping, where she was also her country’s flag bearer. Additionally she is the Individual bronze medallist of show jumping in the 1992 Pan Arab Games in Damascus, Syria.
Princess Haya was elected president of the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) in 2006 for an initial four-year term in the FEI's first contested presidential race. She made history a second time in 2010, when dissatisfaction with her record led to her becoming the first sitting FEI president to be challenged in a re-election bid. She succeeded, however, in refuting the criticisms and in winning a second and final four-year term receiving an overwhelming mandate of 75 percent of the vote, soundly defeating her most vocal critics.
On 7 June 2008, New Approach, a three-year-old colt owned by Princess Haya, trained in Ireland by Jim Bolger and ridden by Kevin Manning, won the Derby Stakes. On 25 October 2008, her three-year-old colt, Raven's Pass, won the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic. After being named the European champion 2-year-old in 2007 and winning the 2008 Epsom Derby, New Approach was retired at the end of the 2008 racing season.
In 2009, due to her contribution to the equine world, she was made the first Patron of Retraining of Racehorses.
Princess Haya holds the position of President of the International Jordanian Athletes Cultural Association which was founded to provide athletes with incentives and support they require from sport clubs and national federations.
Read more about this topic: Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his Neighbour.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“Guys do not have a genetic blueprint that allows them to understand or love sports.”
—Lesley Visser, U.S. sports reporter and announcer. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 82 (June 17, 1991)