Versailles, France—July 29
“On top of the world,” were the first words out of Laura Collett’s mouth as she met the press following the team show jumping for eventing at the Paris Olympics.
The defending gold medalists took the lead of the team competition on dressage day and never relinquished it. They looked poised to head into show jumping with quite a large margin, however, their anchor rider Ros Canter was awarded 15 penalties for missing a flag on Lordships Graffalo.
At the end of cross-country day, the British team protested to get the penalties reversed, but the officials stood by the decision.
“According to Article 161.2 of the FEI General Regulations, decisions made by the Ground Jury regarding field-of-play matters are final and binding. Field of play decisions, which includes where the decision is based on factual observations of performance during a competition or the awarding of marks for performance, are not subject to protest,” read the FEI statement about the decision.
“The Ground Jury also clarified that as per Article 438.1 of the FEI Eventing Rules, only official video recording can be used as evidence,” it continued. “In accordance with the rules, the Officials clarified at the Chef d’Equipes meeting prior to Cross Country that the fence camera footage would be the official video recording for the Cross Country test. This was the only footage that the Officials refer to for the purpose of making the decision.”
Without that penalty, the British team would’ve been 18.7 penalties ahead of France. Instead they had just 3.7.
“It was just a bit sad like yesterday afternoon that that took up the whole day, really that there was no time to really appreciate the fantastic performance that the horse gave me and how much of a phenomenal cross-country horse he is, so I just think he should be celebrated for that,” said Canter. “But yeah, we put that behind us. That is sport: You win some, you lose some, but it wasn’t on our side with the decision making. But you have to move on, and I really concentrated on getting the job done for the team today.”
The team wasn’t perfect: Both Canter and Laura Collett (London 52) had a rail apiece, and Collett had 0.8-time penalties, but thanks to Tom McEwen’s clear round with JL Dublin, the team finished on a 91.3 for their second consecutive gold medal.
“I’ve said it a million times, but I can’t say it enough: I owe everything to him. He is my horse of a lifetime, and I’m so, so proud of him,” said Collett, who was the last to jump. “It was definitely not what we hoped for last night, but we managed to just think, ‘Right, regroup; today is another day, another challenge,’ and I guess it turns out we’re all quite good under pressure, which is quite good.”
Collett had the last fence down, which had fallen quite often throughout the day. That meant she lost a little ground, moving into third individually.
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“To be honest, I think the crowd … maybe erupted slightly too early, but it was one of those fences [that] when you walked the course, you couldn’t see it,” she said. “It blended in, and it was a bit potluck whether it stayed up or not. I couldn’t fault him. He jumped amazing, and it was good enough to win a team gold, so we’ll see what happens later.”
Tom McEwen, who was on the team in Tokyo, finished on his dressage score with JL Dublin, and the team finished on a total of 91.3.
“He felt incredible,” McEwen said of “Dubs.” “I must say when I had an Olympic partner in Toledo [De Kerser], he’s probably one of the best horses in the world at show jumping in eventing. So then to come out and have a day like that with ‘Dubs,’ he was sensational. He was class from start to finish. He jumped his socks off, and I knew it from the moment he warmed up, and he heard the crowd. He really picked up.”
While the French were close on the heels of Britain going into the day, all three of their riders, Nicolas Touzaint (Diabolo Menthe), Karim Florent Laghouag (Triton Fontaine) and Stephane Landois (Chaman Dumontceau) had rails to finish on 103.6 for the silver medal. This is the third straight medal for the French, who won gold in Rio in 2016 and bronze in Tokyo.
“It was absolutely incredible for us to win this medal,” said Touzaint. “We’ve been working on this for an extremely long time, and we tried to do our very best in order to bring a medal to the country to France, and that’s extremely important for us.”
Laghouag credited France’s success in part due to their reliance on French-bred horses, saying that out of eight or nine horses in Toyko, seven of them were French-bred.
“We have a team with an incredible level, and so for this kind of event like this Olympics we have really good results even though we are never winners before the end, and obviously we are looking forward to [the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics] in order to win gold over Great Britain,” he said.
The team who was perhaps most emotional was the one from Japan, comprised of Kazuma Tomoto (Vinci De La Vigne), Yoshiaski Oiwa (MGH Grafton Street), Ryuzo Kitajima (Cekatinka) and Toshiyuki Tanaka (Jefferson). They finished cross-country in bronze-medal position, but at this morning’s horse inspection, Kitajima’s mount Cekatinka was sent to the hold box and was subsequently withdrawn. That meant they earned 20 penalties for substituting in Tanaka and Jefferson for show jumping. But thanks to all three riders jumping clear over fences, they added just 2 time penalties to their score to finish on a 115.8 to take the bronze medal.
The finish was historic for Japan, marking the team’s first equestrian team medal and first eventing medal in Olympic history, and only its second equestrian Olympic medal ever—the first coming almost a century ago, when Takeichi Nishi rode Uranus to individual show jumping gold in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.
“We were dreaming about that,” said Oiwa. “And then we had the Tokyo Olympics, and then we didn’t make it [on the podium]. And then we tried once more here, and [it] finally happened.”
The United States moved up two positions to finish seventh. Caroline Pamukcu had a fence down and earned 0.4-time faults with HSH Blake.
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“He’s unbelievable,” she said. “My rail was totally my fault. I just got there a little bit too soon.
“I thought he’d be maybe a little bit spooky because, if you look, it’s a black-and-gold rail with a Liverpool, and the sun’s reflecting on it, and of course he didn’t spook one bit,” she continued. “So that was my fault. But then the rest was super. Again, he’s a 9-year-old. He’s really wise above his years. I think there’s a big, big, big, big future ahead of us, because anything was my mistake; he didn’t do anything wrong this weekend.”
Liz Halliday said she hasn’t quite processed her first Olympic experience since it’s been such a whirlwind. She was originally named as the traveling reserve with Nutcracker, and stepped in just before the first jog when Will Coleman had to withdraw. She and “Bali” had just 0.8-time faults in the team show jumping round.
“I’m so thrilled,” she said. “He was so fantastic. I’m just over the moon. He’s such a wonderful horse, and he’s come out like he’s done absolutely nothing. He jumped today like he would at a day out at the World Equestrian Center [Florida], having not done all that he’s done here. So that’s all I can ask for him, really.
“I’d say, I’ve been reviewing, where’s my 0.8 time? I think it was between the start flags and the first, genuinely, I think that’s where it was,” she said. “I don’t think I could have done a lot more anywhere else. At the end of the day, I’m just absolutely over the moon with him. He gave me such a good round and such a good feel, and in all that atmosphere, too. This has been a big learning experience for him as well, and he’ll be an even better horse next year for it.”
Boyd Martin jumped clear with Fedarman B to put the team on a final score of 133.7.
“ ’Bruno’ looked like he bounced back from the cross-country really well,” said Martin. “And we had a pretty short warm-up. We didn’t do too many fences. Sort of in the back of your mind, you’re trying to save a little bit of juice for hopefully the second round. I’m just blessed to have a super-duper jumper. He didn’t touch a jump in the warm-up and came in the round and jumped like a superstar.”
Order for the individual final.
The Chronicle has a reporter on site at the Paris Olympics. See all of our coverage here.
