After the first few competitors finished the beautiful Paris Olympics cross-country course on Sunday, from an armchair perspective it may have seemed almost too easy, like a trail ride with challenges.
Britain’s pathfinder, Tom McEwen, completed within the 9-minute, 2-second optimum time to remain on his dressage score of 25.8 penalties. By the end of the day, that would be good enough to move him up from eleventh to sixth with J.L. Dublin. And Germany’s Julia Krajewski, in the unenviable position of being first to embark on cross-country, had just 4.8 time penalties for a total of 31.7 with Nickel 21, a younger horse, therefore not one you’d want to push for time. She wound up fourteenth; most respectable, considering her horse’s lack of experience at the sport’s highest level.
But Tom was a member of the gold medal team at the Tokyo Olympics and Julia is the defending individual gold medalist (with a different horse) from Tokyo. In the early going, their expertise made Pierre Le Goupil’s course look less difficult than it was. Artful in both appearance and design, it took the measure of many in an appropriate way as the hours went by. Six of the 62 starters were eliminated or retired; a host of others couldn’t make the time and accumulated penalties that changed the placings they had earned in Saturday’s dressage.
Tom McEwen and JL Dublin (Photo Jon Stroud Media)
“It is the most amazing crowd all the way around the course. They’re cheering you before, over and after,” said Tom, noting his horse “was phenomenal from start to finish.”.
As the morning went on at Versailles, with a shoulder-to-shoulder enthusiastic spectators who lined the winding route, it turned out that the layout was not only entertaining for fans but was perfect for the job with which the designer had been tasked. And it was safe. There were no ugly falls.
Record-setting Laura Collett of Great Britain and London 52 on the cross-country course, with the palace behind them at Versailles. (Photo Jon Stroud Media)
The changes on the leaderboard were dramatic, with the exception of favored Britain, seeking to defend its Tokyo gold. It continued to head the standings with 82.5 penalties. But instead of being closely pursued by Germany, it was France – with the incentive of competing at home — that moved up to challenge on 87.2 penalties, a little more than the difference of a fallen show jumping rail.
Germany, second after dressage, is now fourteenth on 278.9 penalties. Team member Christoph Wahler had a fall from Carjatan S in the Belvedere complex and was eliminated.
There is no drop score at the Games, which has only three-member teams. Christoph popped out of the saddle when his horse stepped in a ditch after a drop and before the first chevron in the Belvedere complex, obstacle 16 of 28. Carjatan wasn’t the only horse who had trouble reading the ditch.
The USA’s pathfinder, Caroline Pamukcu, ran into a problem there when her HSH Blake got his hind end stuck in the ditch, which she had expected him to jump, but she stayed on and took an optional route to continue. However, she was charged 20 penalties for a refusal, and also accumulated 12 time penalties. She is forty-seventh with 62.4 penalties as part of the U.S. team that was in ninth place after cross-country.
If she were riding as an individual, she would have protested the penalty, she said, but since she is riding for the team, she knew she couldn’t do that. Ironically, she won individual gold at the Pan American Games last fall over a course designed by Le Goupil.
As for her horse, Caroline said, “He was fabulous, answered all the questions. What a brave horse he is, he’s fearless.”
U.S. Chef D’ Equipe Bobby Costello said, “I don’t believe in luck that much, but whatever it was that happened to Caroline at that ditch… It was early on when she didn’t know that all the horses were going to be more or less falling into it, and I don’t for one second put that on her at all. It was just a real unfortunate turn of events. As the day went on…it became clear either to go left or there was a more specific way to ride that right-hand side. It was just a real shame for Caroline that happened to her.”
And the team’s slide from sixth after dressage to ninth was a real dampening of expectations.
“We’re incredibly disappointed at the final result,” Bobby continued.
“I think it shows why this Olympic format is, for better or for worse, intense, it’s completely unforgiving. But that’s the game we came to play today and it didn’t go our way.”
The U.S. may move up a bit in the final show jumping phase, but the podium seems out of reach, even though the team’s horses are all good jumpers.
“We’re not in a place right now where it looks like we can necessarily use that to our advantage,” Bobby pointed out.
“But absolutely anything can happen overnight. Freak things happen, as we saw today, all the time. So we certainly are not going to crawl in a hole. We’re going to come out tomorrow with a fresh mindset for the day and finish up as strongly and in the best place that we possibly can.”
And just as he said, on Sunday night, the U.S. moved up from ninth to eighth after the Irish had to sub Sarah Ennis and Sporfsfield Freelance for Aiofe Clark, after her mare, Action Lady M, “picked up an injury” on cross-country. The additional penalties incurred under Olympic rules moved Ireland down a spot and boosted the U.S. one placing. The official team standings had not been updated to show that change late Sunday.
Britain’s Ros Canter, ranked number one in the world, was charged 15 penalties for a missed flag on course at fence 12D, the triple brush.. She said she did touch a flag there, but added, “I would never have imagined I didn’t jump the jump.” However, an appeal of the penalty by the British team was denied and the score remained the same.
Calling her ride, Lordships Graffalo, better known as Walter, “the horse of a lifetime,” she said of his performance,”Walter absolutely loves to run and jump. He loves the crowd.”
After London 52 lost a front shoe early on and began slipping, Ros’s teammate, Laura Collett, had to be cautious and take a more sweeping line from the final water combination at 23ABCD, which made it tough to finish without time penalties. She had set an Olympic record in dressage with a mark of 17.5 penalties, but the 0.8 time penalties added to that score put her second, just 0.5 penalties behind Germany’s Michael (Michi) Jung. He took the lead with his perfect trip on Chipmunk FRH (one of Julia Krajewski’s former mounts).
But never mind, Laura was so happy with her partner.
“London 52 is just my horse of a lifetime, he’s incredible,”said Laura.
“He’s just so talented and I think, for me, it’s knowing what he was like as a young horse and knowing how much he’s had to trust me and believe in me… he’s not a natural cross-country horse, and then he goes round a course like that on railways tracks – it just shows what a partnership you can build up if you make them believe in you.”
Japan is in podium position, third with 93.8 penalties, so it’s pretty close among the current contenders for the medals, with Switzerland fourth on 102.4.
Michi had a blast while finishing well within the optimum time.
“Today was a lot of moments to enjoy. Chipmunk made it very easy for me. Every jump was easy — he was so well listening and connected to me, and so powerful galloping,” Michi said.
After checking his watch, he told Chipmunk “Okay, we have more time at the next fence so slow down, slow down!’ It was an unbelievable feeling. I’m so thankful to have such good horses, and to be at my fourth Olympic Games is a dream. It’s always a special feeling (at Olympic Games), even if it’s the first time here.”
In fact, he said Chipmunk felt so good that he wanted to do it all over again.
The best American performance belongs to Boyd Martin, who was disappointed in his dressage score Saturday after having flying change problems with Federman B. Cross-country made up for that.
Boyd called his horse, known as Bruno, “An absolute legend, a spring in every step of the way. I couldn’t have asked for anything more today.”
He moved up from twenty-sixth to seventeenth, with just 1.6 time penalties for a total of 32.1.
“He gave me his heart and soul,” said Boyd about his horse, noting that even when Bruno was a little tired near the end, “he kept going,” saying the few slippery spots in the footing didn’t faze a horse who is “sure-footed as a mountain goat.”
Boyd Martin and Federman B on course.
He was buoyed by the crowd’s enthusiasm, noting “I heard more cheers going `Bruno’ than `go Boyd.’” He called it, “one of the most memorable cross-country rounds in my life,” citing, “the venue, the crowds, the moment. I’ll remember this one forever.”
Boyd is optimistic about Monday’s show jumping finale, contending Bruno is is “probably the best jumping horse in the field. I’ve just got to ride well, stay calm and rely on our thousands of hours of practice.”
His other teammate, Liz Halliday, is twenty-second with Nutcracker on 34 penalties.
On a sad note, the oldest horse in the event, Forever Young Wundermaske, finished his Olympic quest at the third water obstacle. Rider Ron Gabala of Ecuador tipped off there from the 21-year-old horse, who has been retired twice but wanted to go back to work.
Click this link for individual standings. Team penalties were not updated Sunday night to show that Ireland had moved down a place.
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Total Penalties
|
|---|
| 1 |
 GBR |
Great Britain
|
82.50 |
| 2 |
 FRA |
France
|
87.20 | ||
| 3 |
 JPN |
Japan
|
93.80 | ||
| 4 |
 SUI |
Switzerland
|
102.40 | ||
| 5 |
 BEL |
Belgium
|
111.00 | ||
| 6 |
 NZL |
New Zealand
|
118.20 | ||
| 7 |
 SWE |
Sweden
|
120.10 | ||
| 8 |
 IRL |
Ireland
|
121.10 | ||
| 9 |
 USA |
United States of America
|
128.50 | ||
| 10 |
 NED |
Netherlands
|
147.50 | ||
| 11 |
 CAN |
Canada
|
158.00 | ||
| 12 |
 BRA |
Brazil
|
177.40 | ||
| 13 |
 ITA |
Italy
|
229.10 | ||
| 14 |
 GER |
Germany
|
278.90 | ||
| 15 |
 AUS |
Australia
|
294.30 | ||
| 16 |
 POL |
Poland
|
391.10 |