Versatility at the Asian Games: Gold for Thailand and Alex Hua Tian

For many participants, the 2026 Asian Games are a case of déjà vu. The venue for equestrian events is the Tokyo Equestrian Park, where the 2021 Olympic Games were held. The competition kicked off with eventing, which was held in a hybrid format featuring three-star dressage and show jumping, as well as two-star cross-country.

After the dressage and show jumping, Japan was in the lead, with Thailand in third place. Then came the 3,640-meter cross-country course, where three of the four team riders—Woraphat Sittiju on Uster de Chanay, Korntawat Samran and Billy Elmy, as well as Weerapat Pitakanonda and Carnival March—all crossed the finish line without a single penalty point. As a result, Thailand’s team score remained unchanged at 109.9 points—enough for gold even before the last Japanese pair had even started. The Thai quartet was rounded out by Supap Khaw-Ngam and Vinetto.

Thailand had thus defeated the favored Japanese team, which had fielded a strong lineup. Yoshiaki Oiwa, Toshiyuki Tanaka, and Kazuma Tomoto were all members of the team that had won a historic bronze medal at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. But it wasn’t enough. With 115.20 penalty points, the Olympic bronze medalists won silver at the Asian Games, finishing behind Thailand and ahead of the Republic of Korea (143.5).

A Long Evolution

Thailand’s victory was no fluke, but rather the result of a long process of development. Thailand won team bronze at the Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018 and in Hangzhou in 2023, as well as the first edition of the FEI Asian Championships in 2019 on home soil in Pattaya. Last year, the team repeated that victory, once again in Pattaya.

Two riders stood out: Samran was a member of the winning teams at the Asian Championships in both 2019 and 2025, and also won an individual silver medal at the Asian Games in 2023. Pitakanonda was part of both Asian Championship title-winning teams as well as the bronze-medal-winning team at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

“We kept training and never stopped improving,” said Pitakanonda. “We had about three years to work on what we were lacking and do better this time.” They succeeded—thanks in large part to the horses, as he emphasized. “I also have to thank the horses—the best part of this sport. Without them, we couldn’t have won this medal. Especially my horse, Carnival March. He’s been with me for eight years; I also rode him at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. It’s a very special moment for me to come back to this place and win gold.”

Japan’s Off-Road Misfortune

Japan had led the team standings after dressage and jumping before things got difficult in the cross-country. Ryo Murata and Brookpark Vikenti incurred 20 obstacle faults and 10.8 time penalty points. That was a bitter blow for the team and for him as well, as it also knocked him out of the top three in the individual standings. They weren’t the only pair to encounter problems on the cross-country course—five were eliminated, and two others withdrew.

Defending champion China went home without any team points: Yuying Shu and Diabolo D’Ems AA were eliminated in the cross-country event. Since the Chinese team consisted of only three combinations, there was no discard result.

Of the 31 combinations that started the cross-country course, 17 completed it without any jumping faults, and only seven remained completely fault-free—a testament to the challenge posed by the seven-minute target time.

Hua Tian Defends His Title

In the individual competition, however, there were no surprises. Alex Hua Tian and the nine-year-old Irish horse Manjushri—whom the Chinese rider was competing at the four-star level for the first time this year—took the lead after scoring 26.9 penalty points in dressage and never relinquished it. In the jumping, the pair remained faultless; in the cross-country, they crossed the finish line in 6:49 minutes—eleven seconds under the target time—and thus finished with their dressage score.

This is Hua Tian’s second consecutive singles title at the Asian Games, following his victory in Hangzhou in 2023 aboard Poseidon’s Admiral.

“Above all, I’m just relieved,” said the reigning and newly crowned champion, who rides for his home country of China but calls England home. “Of course, there’s pressure when you’re defending a gold medal at a championship, especially when you’re competing with a horse as good as Manjushri. My main thought was simply not to let him or his owners down. They’re such great supporters. I’ve had a good year; now I can just relax and enjoy it.”

Thailand’s Sittiju and Uster de Chanay also finished the competition with a dressage score of 30.1 points, securing the individual silver medal—another huge success for Thailand. Bronze went to Japan’s Yoshiaki Oiwa and Ottawa des Desig, who added just 0.4 time penalty points to their dressage and jumping scores in the cross-country and finished with 31.7 points.