Britain is through to the Olympic showjumping team final in style, after a third rotation that shook up the leaderboard in the qualifying round – and included some surprising results.
Ben Maher and Dallas Vegas Batilly’s clear, and Harry Charles and Romeo 88 and Scott Brash and Hello Jefferson’s four faults each, meant they finished the team qualifier in third place, of the top 10 teams that will contest the medals tomorrow (2 August).
Germany tops the leaderboard with three clears, from Christian Kukuk (Checker 47), Philipp Weishaupt (Zineday) and Richard Vogel (United Touch S). The US finished second on six faults; Karl Cook and Caracole De La Roque and Laura Kraut and Baloutinue jumped clear, and last combination McLain Ward and Ilex picked up four for jumping and two for time.
On eight faults were Belgium and the Netherlands, in fourth and fifth respectively, Ireland finished sixth on nine and hosts France are in seventh on 12.
One major surprise came for defending Olympic champions Sweden, which had kicked off with two clears but finished today in eighth place on 17 faults, after Peder Fredricson and Catch Me not S had an uncharacteristic run-out at the wall at fence 11 as well as a pole, notching up nine time-faults.
“It was very good until the wall and I don’t really know, maybe I turned a little bit tight to it,” Peder said. “And then he got a bit surprised and didn’t know if he was supposed to jump it or what it was, so he stopped. And that really surprised me because I had a very good feeling until then.”
Peder said that in this new format, with no drop score, he felt the pressure to get home.
“Although I wasn’t very worried because normally he doesn’t stop,” he said. “But anyway, I had to make sure it didn’t happen again, but we were lucky. We made it to the final and then we start on zero tomorrow. So for the sake of the results, it doesn’t really matter. But of course, I would have been happy with a clear.”
Israel and Mexico complete the top 10 through to tomorrow but Switzerland provided another shock; having finished fifth as a team in Tokyo, they will not feature in tomorrow’s final as they finished 12th today on a total of 24 faults.
Martin Fuchs, whose four-fault round with Leone Jei was not enough following Steve Guerdat and Dynamix De Belheme’s eight and Pius Schwizer and Vancouver De Lanlore’s 12, said it was “definitely not the day we wished for”.
“I actually was very confident going in, believing that if it was a clear round we’d qualify for the final,” he said. “So I was highly motivated and Leone Jei felt felt great throughout the course; I really believed that we could deliver this clear round and try to save our chances for the final. Maybe I was almost a bit too confident in the combination when he jumped the planks [at 13b] so well. I didn’t focus enough for the c [element]; I was already thinking about bringing it home and not about jumping the fence first.”
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