Cross Country Course Building and Design

David Evans and his course building team spent around 9 months in Hong Kong over the three years leading up to the Olympic three day event in August 2008, together with a large contingent of Chinese groundwork experts from the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Beas River golf course and country club was temporarily converted for the 2008 Olympic cross country course. Close by, Sha Tin racecourse, run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, provided a venue for the dressage and show jumping events and also housed the horses and riders.

2006 saw David Evans and his team working with experts from the Hong Kong Jockey Club on major groundworks including digging water jumps and ditches, extensive drainage and landscaping the track to make good jump areas and gallops. Much of the track was re-turfed and planted with new grass that gave both efficient drainage and secure footing for the horses.

The Good Luck Beijing test event was held in August 2007, to test the emergency services, infrastructure and new facilities, and to see how the horses and riders would deal with the heat and humidity of the Hong Kong Olympic site.

The handover of the golf course took place on 2nd June 2008, giving David Evans and his course building team 8 weeks until the ground jury walked the course on 15 August. At that point, there were only 6 permanent-but unfinished- jumps on the site.

In the 8 weeks leading up to the Olympic 3 day event, more permanent jumps were built, and all the portable jumps were installed (bringing the total to about 60). Some of the portable cross country jumps were constructed in David Evans and Richard Taylors UK workshop, and shipped to Hong Kong in containers. Others were built in a temporary workshop on site, from where the many animal and other carvings were also produced.

Beyond the construction and installation of the jumps, the cross country track was pegged and strung, and pedestrian walkways were delineated and constructed. Sanding, painting, finishing, positioning unjumpable elements, flowers and carving on the course all took place in the final days leading up to the big event.

The Olympic cross country course designer, Mike Etherington Smith, drew on aspects of Chinese culture and heritage to make the cross country track into a dramatic landscape for spectators and competitors alike. David Evans and his team of course builders translated these ideas into jumps, and jump complexes including unjumpable areas and carvings around the fences to add to the Chinese atmosphere and technicality of the course.

'Walk' the finished 2008 Olympic Cross Country course: visit our web gallery

David would like to take this opportunity to thank his team of course builders (both in Hong Kong and in the UK) who worked so hard in the three year run up to the Olympics in Hong Kong and extra hard through 2008! Cheers lads (and lasses)!!