An update on the FEI Online Invitation System for Jumping and the developments planned for 2019.

One of the main points in your feedback and our own analysis of the first two pilot phases of the FEI Online Invitation System was related to the timelines. Athletes had to decide quite early in advance if they wanted to accept an invitation or not and, once decided, they could not change their decision within the Invitation System quota. The timeframes were also challenging for National Federations and Chefs d’Equipe to select athletes for certain events and manage athletes’ choices and changes.

To address this:

• the new version of the FEI Online Invitation System will use a “choice and priority” concept;
• Each athlete will be able to indicate for a given week in which events they would like to participate and order them by priority;
• Athletes will have a longer period of time to select events to which they wish to receive an invitation;
• This “selection period” will be open for 4 weeks and starts 8 weeks prior to the week of the event. During this time, athletes can change their choices and priorities as often as they wish;
• National Federations will be able to confirm the choice and priorities of their athletes manually or automatically;
• National Federations will also be able to change priorities or events that have been chosen by their athletes and indicate which of their athletes are participating in selected events, such as CSIOs.

Following the National Federations’ approvals process, all invitations are attributed simultaneously via the FEI Online Invitation System in accordance with the athlete’s position in the Longines Ranking, the quotas of the event and the priorities and choices the athletes and National Federations have selected.

 

This new workflow will allow all ranked athletes to indicate in which events they would like the opportunity to participate and also give them more time to decide where they would like to go.

The above process also addresses the opportunity for lower ranked athletes to receive invitations. The new system will provide more opportunities for athletes ranked lower down the Longines Rankings to receive invitations as it does not rely on the actions of athletes accepting/declining invitations as was the case with the first version.

The technical development of this new version is now in progress, and we foresee a pilot phase in the second half of 2019, with a full launch of the FEI Online Invitation System in 2020.

We will contact you again in April with an update of the situation as well as providing the National Federation members in charge of your Jumping athletes more detailed information on workflows and what will change from the first version they used in 2018.

Please do not hesitate to contact FEI if you have any questions: invitations@fei.org