Arranging an international competition is a big task for any country to undertake. Collaboration is required in all areas of responsibility, and to support that in a Nordic context, the Nordic Icelandic Horse Collaboration, or NIHC for short, was founded in 2017. The collaboration has its roots in the World Championships of 2015, arranged in Denmark. Cooperation between the Nordic countries had existed for a long time already, but the first signed collaboration agreement between the Nordic countries was made to support the organising of the World Championships. The good experiences from the official partnership in Denmark proved that through active collaboration more could be achieved together. Therefore, the collaboration was officially founded two years later by Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
The main aim of the organisation is to cooperate for the welfare of the Icelandic horse and to support the Nordic countries in all matters concerning the Icelandic horses. The work of the foundation is characterised by voluntariness, democracy, loyalty, and equality. NIHC recognises FEIF as the international federation in all matters, and all the founding countries are members of FEIF.
For this year’s Nordic Championships in Finland, NIHC acts as the governing body, that sets and monitors the standards of the event. The organisation of the Nordic Championships is a partnership between NIHC and the organising country, pursuing to create a successful Sport and Gæðingakeppni competition. On the administrative level the competition is handled by three different organisations, NIHC, The Finnish Icelandic Horse Association (SIHY) and Åland’s local club Álenskur, following the rules of the International Federation of Icelandic Horse Associations (FEIF) as well as applying the rules of The Equestrian Federation of Finland (SRL) where applicable. Below you can see the organisation structure for this year’s Nordic Championships, created by the team working for the competition.
Together with the whole team we aim to bring you a great event this summer in Åland, Finland!