Upset sees jump-off for medals
Jenny MacArthur
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From Jenny MacArthur in Sydney
Nobody could accuse the Olympic showjumping event of running to form. In a drama-filled final day at the windswept Horsley Park arena, Holland gained their first Olympic showjumping individual gold medal when Jeroen Dubbeldam, on Sjiem, a horse that had never even won a grand prix, relegated his countryman Albert Voorn, on Lando, to the silver medal after a three-horse jump-off.
Khaled Al Eid, a former pupil of John Whitaker, brought Saudi Arabia their first ever Olympic equestrian medal when he and Khasm Al Aan, the horse on which he was runner-up to Whitaker in the British Grand Prix at Hickstead in July, took the bronze. In a startling end to the competition, world champion Rodrigo Pessoa, of Brazil, and the clear favourite, crashed out of the contest when his horse Baloubet du Rouet had three refusals at Fence 8a, an oxer. His exit prompted the jump-off among the three riders on four faults.
The unexpected line-up of medal winners prompted an emotional press conference, with Dubbeldam, a 27-year-old riding instructor, and Voorn, 44, a former three-day-event rider, both in tears. Voorn spoke for both of them: “This is a dream come true. One very good rider said that neither of us were good enough to succeed here. Now we have both won medals.”
Pessoa looked invincible after a clear first round, and had the chance to win the event outright if he could repeat the performance. When he stopped at the huge oxer there was stunned disbelief from the 20,000 around the arena. Pessoa himself was at a loss to explain what had happened. "Everything was going well. It’s a big character lesson - very hard to swallow - I’m not looking for excuses. I just hope the horse will be all right,” he said.
The three British riders - hoping to improve on their performances in the team event, were again left to lick their wounds. The crestfallen face of Ronnie Massarella summed up the whole British showjumping effort. Massarella, 77, who had to concede early on in the contest that his hopes of ending his 30-year stint as manager with a gold medal were not to be realised, said: “We’ve underperformed. It’s bitterly disappointing.”
Frustratingly, all three thought they had a good chance in the final after seeing the 13-fence course, which had been designed by Leopoldo Palacios Jugo. “I was quite confident,” said John Whitaker, who had 16 faults on Calvaro. “We all thought it was good when we walked it but it rode more difficult than it looked.” Billington, who collected 12 faults on It’s Otto, was similarly mystified. “I thought it would suit It’s Otto. If I were to ride it again, I wouldn’t ride it any different,” he said. True to his word he collected 12 faults again in the second round where he was the only remaining Briton.
Michael Whitaker, whose Prince Of Wales was jumping superbly, was the most frustrated of the three. “I should have had a clear round. It was just stupid,” he said. He attributed his mistakes to his mount becoming unsettled following the first four faults, which occurred at the influential white rail (Fence 6) after the water jump. “I had to kick hard for the water because it’s so wide - 16 feet - but I still thought he’d jump the rail all right,” he said.
The performance concluded a dismal ten days for the British equestrian team. While Britain’s sailing teams were showing a prompt return for their lottery funding, the riders - with the notable exception of the silver-medal winning three-day-event team - had underperformed.
“There are lessons to be learnt," said John Tulloch, the outgoing president of the British Equestrian Federation. "We need to go home and analyse what went wrong here and put in place a strategy for Athens.”
One of those lessons is rider attitude. “They’re not focused enough. They don’t treat the Olympic Games as a special event,” railed Malcolm Pyrah, the showjumpers' team coach. “No team has had a better build-up with the training and veterinary care. The lottery money has seen to that, but the riders are not positive enough.”
It was the same in the dressage where, apart from Emile Faurie, no rider achieved their usual standard. Jane Kidd, the chairman of selectors, had known that only a “great deal of luck” would get them into the medals but had thought the “medal zone” was well within their grasp.
“We have not met our target. We need to have a re-think,” Kidd said. The failure of Britain’s individual three-day-event riders to bring back any medals has underlined the need for further improvement in the dressage phase. All three were clear in the cross country but could not compensate for their dressage scores.
But none of these under-achievements should detract from the three-day-event team’s silver medal - the first equestrian medal for Britain since taking silver in Seoul in 1988. Jeannette Breakwell, Pippa Funnell and Leslie Law were competing in their first Olympic Games but, under the intelligent guidance of the new team manager, Yogi Breisner, displayed the type of brave, positive riding with which Britain is traditionally associated. “We felt confident from the start,” said Funnell, who has never ridden better. Frustratingly it failed to rub off on the other equestrian teams.
