Klaus Pavel, President of the Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein e.V. (ALRV) is "proud and happy".Reason is that the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen, remains the official tournament of the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, the CHIO is now and will be in future the only tournament in Germany that organises Nation Prizes in the disciplines Jumping, Dressage and Four-in-Hand Driving. World-wide, there is no other event by which three official Nation Prizes will be held at the same time. In Berlin, the Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein (ALRV) and the German Equestrian Federation (FN) now announced the appropriate extension of the contract until the year 2015.

The President of the FN is also convinced that the decision to extent the contract was right: "The CHIO Aachen is a high-class tournament. In Aachen, the FN has the best place for the Nation Prizes." Thumann lauded explicitly that the ALRV "goes a lot of new ways in the sense of the equestrian sport."

Fans of the equestrian sport in general simply say "Tschio" when they are talking about the CHIO Aachen. Only few of them know about the real meaning of the four famous letters in the equestrian sport: Concours Hippique International Officiel. A special meaning has within the "Officiel". Because only who may call himself "official", is allowed to hold Nation Prizes. In Aachen, the "O" has a long tradition: In 1929, the Swedish Jumping Equipe won the first Nation Prize on the show grounds in the Soers.

"The agreement with the FN is an affirmation of the work of the ALRV in the past years", Klaus Pavel said on the occssion of the press conference in the "Universal Hall" in Berlin. Because the CHIO Aachen has developed continously. And with the quality of the tournament, the popularity has increased as well. Thus, the numbers of the visi-tors have raised from 200,000 in 1997 to 315,000 in 2004. And even the popularity on TV raises. As in 1998, the cumulative coverage was by 42 millions, the numbers have changed to 86 millions in the past years.