Olympic Happy Hour: August 3
Throughout the Olympics, Horse Nation will be capping off each day with a pint-sized synopsis of the most recent Olympic equestrian sporting festivities. Here’s your Happy Hour report for Friday, August 3.
Liz Fletcher is Horse Nation’s Olympic dressage guru, so I’ll let her take it from here:
From Liz:
Welcome to day two of OLYMPIC DRESSAGE….
After today’s performances, the top seven teams were decided by averaging their scores and will now move on to the Grand Prix Special to compete for gold. The Special will be held on the 7th of August, so horses and riders have a fairly long break, at least compared to eventing. The top 11 individuals who are not already qualified with a team will also move on to the Special. Then, after the Special, the top 18 individuals move on to the Freestyle where the individual medals are decided. The freestyle competition is on the 9th of August.
Tina Konyot rode Calecto V to a 70.465%, but it was Steffen Peters and Ravel who pulled the U.S. average score up enough for them to qualify for the Special. Before Peters rode, the US was behind Sweden by .524%, but Steffen Peters rode Ravel to a 77.948%! This helped the U.S. secure 5th. In order to medal, the American team is going to have to pull out everything they’ve got in the arsenal. Even then, that might not be enough.
Great Britain continued to live up to expectations and Charlotte Dujardin scored an 83.784% this morning!!!!!! She absolutely rocked it. Carl Hester, Charlotte’s coach, mentor, and teammate, says that this is an Olympic record. While I don’t like making medaling predictions because I’m almost always wrong, I will say that Great Britain will be on the podium barring any accidents both in and out of the ring.
Right behind her sits Adelinde Cornelissen for the Netherlands with an 81.687% and Helen Langehanenberg of Germany with an 81.140%. This is some of the best dressage I think we have seen at an Olympics, which the scores have reflected.
Again, Canada could not compete as a team because of Daniel Marcus’s elimination, but Ashley Holzer had a lovely round on Breaking Dawn and scored a 71.849%, which has qualified her for the Special. Unfortunately her team member Jacqui Brooks on D’Niro did not qualify.
Four riders competed in helmets today: Ashley Holzer for Canada, Adrienne Lyle the American individual, Goncalo Carvalho of Portugal, and Charlotte Dujardin of Great Britain.
Here are the qualified teams, plus average scores:
Here is how the top 30 individuals scored:
The Q stands for qualified.
That is all for Olympic dressage until the 7th, but Show Jumping starts tomorrow and we’ll be back then for more coverage on that front. Stay tuned to hear how the American team and all others fared after day one of competition.
Go dressage, go Olympics, go Stephen Colbert piaffing!
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