Images and quotes from day 2 in Paris: Jumping Team Final

Great Britain claimed Jumping Team Gold without a single fence down and counting only two time faults!

A delighted British Chef d’Equipe, Di Lampard, reflected on the success said: “The plan has come together after four years and I’m completely overwhelmed! They were outstanding, the lads were ice-cool and delivered on the given day! We always put Ben out first, he’s the pathfinder and he’s so good at it. To put Harry in the middle was an obvious one and his clear round was joyous and probably put even more pressure on Scott! But we know he has ice-cold veins and he delivered in real style!”

Team USA won the  silver medal with a final scoreline of just four faults. It was the USA’s third Olympic team silver in a row and their seventh in the history of the Games.

In the battle for bronze it was France that clinched it thanks to quicker combined times for their three combinations who edged the Dutch off the podium by the narrowest of margins – 0.57 seconds – when both sides completed with seven faults on the board.

The last Gold medal for Great Britain was in London 2012, and the team was: Both Maher and Brash were young guns in their 20’s alongside Harry Charles’ father Peter, and Nick Skelton.

Scott Brash: “A gold medal doesn't get old! It's incredible, obviously, to win in London in front of our home crowd, which was one of the best days of my life, but here is right up there! I mean what an unbelievable setting, what a beautiful venue for our sport and facilities for the horses were incredible!”

And asked what it was like to enter that cauldron of tension to secure that gold, he replied, “you’ve got to stay focused on your horse, it’s a partnership, you really need to know your horse inside out to be able to jump that course, it's technical, it's big, you’re jumping at the highest level and there's questions all around that course. So you really need to know your horse inside out and ride the best way possible for them to jump clear. You stay focused and then try and execute your plan and that's what I tried to do, and thankfully it paid off!”, Scott explained.

Ben Maher said: "We left the jumps up and gave the team a great start!”, he pointed out. “We’re talking about 0.3 of a second over the time - I could probably just have turned back shorter after the double of Liverpools (4ab) and taken a bit of a risk, but my horse is younger and our team in a good position anyway”.

About Dallas Vegas Batilly, Ben said: “She’s been very consistent and won already some really good Grand Prix all over the world. We did the championship indoors back in April to give us some experience. There were some question marks over my change of horse last-minute but I’m in a very fortunate position, she is the more experienced horse in the stable at the moment and I just felt that she was really on form and ready at the right time, and she's certainly shown that today!”.

Harry Charles, who was member of the Young Riders Academy in 2018, said he initially thought today’s course was not too tough, “but that's how good these course builders are - it rode completely differently to how it walked! It's probably much more difficult than yesterday but suited my horse better with striding in between the jumps. He likes to jump from a collected canter rather than an open one so I could get to most of the jumps in a holding stride which was a big benefit. And I wasn't really too concerned with the time allowed. He was really quick yesterday, so I thought if I just do my normal pace I should be inside and just was. So I was pretty happy about that”.

Laura Kraut (USA), silver medal with her Team, was surprised by her horse 14-year-old gelding Baloutinue’s single mistake at that bogey triple combination. “He kind of looked at it a little bit and I had maybe too much momentum but other than that he didn't put a foot wrong”, she said. 

Talking about the course she pointed out:

“What's been really nice is there's been no eliminations, no disasters, lots of poles down and time faults and they have been very crafty with the time allowed. I felt like I was flying, and I only came in a second and a half under the time, so I think it's just as you would expect - we’re at the Olympics after all!”

McLain Ward said: “Both Laura and I have been particularly blessed (competing for Team USA) for a number of years. What the Olympics represents, its principles, at its very best is something that we really are proud of and look to as a goal. Our team mentality is that this is the pinnacle of the sport. This is what we aim everything towards, not only ourselves, but everybody behind us, and we're willing to sacrifice a lot of other events throughout the season to try to be primed at the right moment with the right combinations. That's not to say that sometimes you think you have the recipe right and you don't. But I think being able to pull that off a few times builds confidence, and everybody keeps delivering, and that perpetuates itself, it inspires the next generation and it inspires all the people around us and behind us to continue”.

Karl Cook built a relationship with the feisty French-bred mare Caracole de la Roque particularly over the last few months. They jumped a fabulous clear round, and Karl commented: “You build that trust and understanding over time. I’m thrilled with how she has been here in Paris - she’s a very wonderful horse!”

The French were filled with emotion and delighted to find themselves on the podium. As Epaillard said, “we wanted a medal - and we got it!”. And it was even more special to do it in front of the French President Emmanuel Macron.

For Olivier Perreau his bronze was particularly emotional because he earned it on a home-bred mare he has produced himself and which only began to show real potential over the last year. “I took her to the European Championship last year and my aim was always to have her here in Paris - I’m so proud of her and so very, very happy!”, he said.

RESULTS

Quotes and photos extracted from FEI Press Release