New Zealand’s eventing team has slipped to fourth place after a thrilling day’s cross-country in Tokyo. A masterful display by the British riders have seen their team in a commanding position – all three coming home clear and under time, and holding first, third and sixth places individually.
Great Britain finished the day on a team total of 78.3, which means they can drop four rails between them and still take the gold medal.
Australia had a great day across the country too, with both Andrew Hoy and Shane Rose coming home clear and under time, and Kevin McNab adding just 2.8 time faults. Australia has zoomed up from sixth after dressage to silver medal position as a result, with Andrew individually seventh, Shane ninth and Kevin 15th.
France, the defending champions, have a couple of new faces in their team and looked very determined to make up for a somewhat disappointing dressage performance. Karim Florent Laghouag was one of just seven double clears, and his compatriots, Nicolas Touzaint and Christopher Six, picked up just two time penalties between them, to rise to overnight third, less than a single penalty behind Australia. The French riders are individually eighth, 11th and 13th.
Jonelle Price, the first team member out on course for New Zealand, jumped clear but picked two time faults with Grovine de Reve.“He gave me a lovely ride, to be honest – with the the two years I’ve had him we’ve developed a really good partnership,” Jonelle says. “He wasn’t the fastest horse when I first got him, but he’s done nothing but improve, and while I thought we weren’t going to be the fastest of the day, I was hoping we could be close or thereabouts and, we’ve certainly done that. Obviously I would have liked to have been five seconds faster, but we’re happy with it.”
Jonelle is now in 12th position individually.
Next out for New Zealand, Jesse Campbell displayed great horsemanship to nurse home a visibly tiring Diachello, who was clear but incurred 14.4 time faults. Jesse is now in 27th place.
So it was all up to Tim Price, and he and Vitali delivered, with a beautiful round that, unfortunately, just picked up 1.2 time faults. Tim is now in individual fourth position, and there is less than a rail between him and the leader, Oliver Townend with Ballaghmor Class. Tim is just a single penalty behind third-placed Laura Collett, riding London 52.
“It felt fast and furious with lots of big jobs just around the corner,” says Tim. “It just hits them in the face, which is why it was always a bit of a risk for a young horse, because they come up the hill and even though you’ve warmed up over some fences it sort of dawns on them this is actually cross-country day – it’s not another training day – and it looks like a pretty serious day at the office.”
The biggest shock of the day was the near demise of the almighty German campaign. Julia Krajewski, pathfinder for the Germans with Amande De B’Neville, put in a great round to finish just one second over the optimum time, adding 0.4 of a time penalty to their 25.2 dressage. They now hold individual silver position going into the show jumping.
“My horse was a little bit surprised with the surroundings. She got a bit distracted by the moving camera in the middle of the course, but generally she just showed me what a cool mare she is,” Julia says. “She has the biggest heart and she’s the biggest lion and huge fighter. I would like to say it was all fun, but probably three-quarters was real fun, then I had to do a bit of work, but she was really cool.”
But the second German rider, former World Champion Sandra Auffarth, had a tough time of it; her horse Viamant du Matz looked strong and hard to steer, and they had an early run-out at the influential first water complex, as well as collecting 2.4 time faults.
Michael Jung, who was the individual overnight leader and the double defending champion, looked certain to add to his gold medal collection, riding out second-last on course.
But Chipmunk FRH activated the frangible pin at fence 14, a corner that caught out a number of riders. This gave Michael an automatic 11 penalties, although he cruised home easily under the time. He has now slipped to 10th place, and the German team to sixth on a total of 114.2, behind the USA who are in fifth on 109.4.
Oliver Townend, therefore, is poised to become Olympic champion as well as world number one – providing of course that show jumping goes his way tomorrow night, with one round to be jumped for the team medals and then a second to decide the individual places.
Second to go on cross-country today, Oliver and his multiple five-star winner Ballaghmor Class were comfortably within the time without appearing to hurry.
“We know this horse is special and anyone that watches eventing knows he is special, and he digs deep,” Oliver says.“His mentality makes him special more than anything. He is tough in every aspect of life – quirky, but tough – and the bottom line is that he wants to do his job more than most horses.
“The distances didn’t quite happen quite how I imagined, just in the first two waters, but having said that, they were very comfortable distances and I have a lot of trust in designer Derek de Grazia’s courses and I think the man is one of, if not the best, in the world at what he’s doing.”
And although the day could hardly have gone better for Oliver, he’s not celebrating quite just yet.
“I don’t enjoy these things until I’m on the plane on the way back home, and then I can enjoy it more than you can ever imagine.”
Japan’s Kazuma Tomoto and Vinci De La Vigne were the standouts for the host nation, moving up the leaderboard from their overnight seventh place to fifth after jumping clear but adding 1.6 time penalties.
But it was sad to see Japan’s team campaign fall apart. The second rider, Toshiyuki Tanaka, had 20 jumping and 10.8 time penalties, and their final rider Yoshiaki Oiwa fell at the Mt Fuji drop. In total, nine riders were eliminated and two retired.
Overnight third-placed Alex Hua Tian picked up a disappointing 12 time penalties to drop down to 18th place, but he was delighted with his horse Don Geniro.
“I’m really proud of him,” says Alex. “He started flagging as I thought he would do in the heat, and I had to help them a bit at the last couple of combinations, and we just lost time.”
Both his team mates, Huadong Sun and Yingfeng Bao, jumped clear too – though each collected quite a few time penalties. China has a total of 185.6 penalties for ninth place going into the show jumping, behind Italy in seventh and Ireland in eighth.
Sweden’s team, which looked so strong after dressage, was left in tatters; first Ludwig Svennerstal and Balham Mist were substituted for Sara Algotsson Ostholt and Chicuelo, owing to Balham Mist suffering a minor injury. But both of the other team riders were eliminated, so Sara didn’t even get to start.
