Locate Germany on the map for today’s Geo Quiz…and look west. The city we’re aiming for today is Germany’s western-most city. It’s about as close to Germany’s border with Belgium and the Netherlands as you can get.
photo credit: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:%D7%90photo credit: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:%D7%90
The city’s medieval churches still have battle scars from World War Two. Then, the city was damaged by American artillery fire and by the German SS forces, which were determined to prevent it from falling into allied hands.
The annual equestrian competition there is one of the biggest events of its kind in the world. It’s to horse lovers what Wimbledon is to tennis fans.
A local specialty is something called Printen. It’s a type of sweet bread — kind of a German version of gingerbread. So name this German city famous for its horse riding and sweetbread.
PrintenPrinten
We’ll talk with one horse-rider who’s training there for the 2008 Olympics…when we reveal the answer…
Time to trot out today’s Geo Answer. We were looking for a German city known for its annual equestrian festival.
The answer is Acchen, Germany.
And it’s there that a retired corporate chief from Japan is preparing for this Summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
Hiroshi Hoketsu is 66 years old. He was named today to Japan’s Olympic Equestrian Team. That makes him Japan’s oldest Olympic athlete. He last competed in the Olympics 44 years ago in Tokyo. Back then he says he couldn’t have imagined a comeback:
?I was thinking to quit riding within the next few years of the Olympics and what happened? What happened was after the Olympics, I went to graduate school in the US, I was totally out of riding, but very close to my school there was a small riding school and I happened to go there and started riding again there. (Chuckles)”
Too old for show jumping, Hoketsu will compete in the dressage competition. He describes dressage as specialized figure skating — but on a horse. He says horseback riding has been his life long love:
?If you go riding a horse you really get out of everything, you think in a different way also it’s a horse they don’t talk you have to think what they’re thinking and what you’re doing is the correct thing or not I think that is a very good training for human being too.?