AThe hopes of the German show jumpers ended in the triple combination. Daniel Deußer, the most experienced among them and therefore the final rider, experienced one of the blackest moments in his career as an athlete. A flawless lap would have been absolutely necessary after the preliminary work of his colleagues in order to at least keep the theoretical chance of the desired team medal.
But then a pole fell at the entry point to this obstacle, one of numerous cliffs on this difficult Olympic course. The following distance to an oxer built above water no longer fit, so that Deusser had to parry his mare Killer Queen through. A stop that is counted as a refusal. “His mare was frightened, said Deußer. “She has never done that before”. Perhaps she’d been irritated by the water blinking in the floodlights as she jumped in.
That’s it. The world number one, currently one of the best show jumpers in the world, had to lay down his arms. Deusser decided not to continue the course. Why should he have continued to strain his horse? After an encouraging extra jump to give the horse a positive experience at the end, the Wiesbadener, who lives in Belgium, left the scene of horror. The German team had imagined it differently. Since the Tokyo mode was not intended to result in a cancellation in which a disastrous individual line could have disappeared, only ninth place remained. Five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, national coach Otto Becker’s team won bronze.
Sweden the deserved winner
The Swedes became Olympic champions. And how to turn it around: Despite a set of rules distorted by the World Association, they were the deserved winners. In the jump-off for gold and silver, in which everyone involved had no mistakes, the trio was faster than the riders from the United States. Henrik von Eckermann with King Edward, Malin Baryard-Johnsson with Indiana and Peder Fredrikson with All In impressed from day one with strong rides, Fredrikson already won silver in the individual standings, Eckermann did not throw a single drop in the entire tournament, Baryard-Johnsson allowed only on Saturday a single lapse in circulation, on Deusser’s fate obstacle, in the triple.
The Swedish trio had already reached the jump-off in the competition for the individual ranking. But that also meant that their horses had to complete two more grueling rounds before the jump-off compared to the United States, which had not qualified for the individual final. Even so, the Swedish horses were fit enough to win. Laura Kraut, Jessica Springsteen, the rock star’s daughter, and McLain Ward had to make do with silver, the Belgians won bronze despite twelve penalty points, which shows how difficult the final course was.
On Friday, in the first part of the team competition, the German riders had shown strong performances: They did not make a single mistake in the obstacle. But according to the new regulations, all teams started from scratch on Saturday. And it didn’t work. Andre Thieme (Plau am See), who started the race first with his mare Chakaria, was initially doing well. But at the beginning of the extremely tricky final line in the direction of a tight double combination, he pursued the plan that was made together in the team, but not helpful, to include six short gallops instead of five longer ones.
The result was a throw – plus a subsequent error at the next obstacle – a total of eight points. Maurice Tebbel from Emsbüren, like Thieme Olympic newcomer, also started the course promisingly. But a wafer-thin throw, also twice on the final line, brought another four points to the German account. It later became apparent that Germany, had Deußer gone without a mistake, could have achieved a jump-off for bronze. But retrospective anger is pointless in this case too.
In the end, it wasn’t Deußer who experienced his biggest Waterloo on the last day of the equestrian competitions in Tokyo. It was the French Pénélope Leprevost, with her stallion Vancouver. France was on the way to Olympic victory after two riders. But the team Olympic champion from Rio failed because of the double combination. First there was a drop with the following refusal. To save what could be saved for her team, she tried again. Refusal again – dropped out.
The result: the glorious Tricolore team fell from one to eight, one place ahead of Germany. Great Britain came last, however, because the individual Olympic champion Ben Maher no longer even entered the course with his super jumper Explosion – in the absence of a cancellation result, he saw no point in it because his two colleagues had made too many mistakes. Also a consequence of the new regulations, but nobody wanted to get upset about it on the day of the final. Especially since Otto Becker had to state: “That wasn’t the reason.”
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