As you all may know, last week I was fortunate enough to get to go to the Olympics to watch the eventing show jumping as a graduation present. It was a fantastic day and I spent most of it on the edge of my seat jumping up every time a British rider jumped.
The equestrian part of the Olympics is being held in the manicured parkland of Greenwich Park in south-east London. As I sat in my seat I was breath taken by the fantastic views of Canary Wharf, the City and much of London's fascinating skyline.
The eventing, which took part over three days involves the three disciplines, Dressage, Cross Country and Show Jumping. Riders compete for their national teams but also as individuals.
The dressage on day 1 of the eventing saw Mary King give the British hopes of gold by securing third place with 40.9 on Imperial Cavalier. Mary produced what can only be described as a lovely test on the 15-year-old. Knowing that the horse can find big crowds exciting, Mary entered the arena at Greenwich shushing the crowd and asking them to be quiet. Mary completed a virtually mistake-free test until the final flying change where she picked up only fours from all three judges. This cost them lead position but still put them in good stead for the cross country on the 2nd day.
The cross country saw Britain storm right into silver medal position after they produced some fantastic rounds on the testing but lovely course through Greenwich park.
All five of the British riders jumped clear round the course that caused quite a few problems for other countries and saw quite a few falls.
Nicola Wilson riding Opposition Buzz, Tina Cook riding Miners Frolic, Zara Phillips on High Kingdom, Mark King with Imperial Cavalier all went clear with only Mary picking up less than two time-faults. However, William Fox-Pitt had a slightly more dissapointing day after collecting 9.2 time-penalties on Lionheart.
After the day, Tina Cook was the best placed Brit laying in 5th place. Mary was 0.1 penalties behind her in sixth place, Zara was in 10th, Nicola in 20th and William Fox-Pitt in 21st.
This put Britain in to silver position overnight ready for the final day of show jumping.
As soon as I arrived at Greenwich the atmosphere was amazing. Everyone was absolutely loving being there and clearly looking forward for what was to come. Mine and Marks seats were in a fantastic place and we were able to see everything. It made it even more enjoyable that around us we were surrounded by members of different countries. We had people from Thailand, Germany, France and Ireland sat around us and despite us all wanting our country to win gold, we all simply were enjoying the atmosphere.
The course of show jumps saw the best of the British demonstrated in the making of the jumps . There was Trafalgar square, Royal Mail, Stone Henge and lots more.
The Germans, who led the leader board throughout the whole competition caused quite a reaction throughout the day as it was clear they were in it to win it. The whole day was just absolutely nail biting and tense.
Tina Cook jumped clear with only one time fault on Miners Frolic which put her in fourth place for the individual decider in the afternoon.
Zara Phillips and High Kingdom had only four faults and three time penalties which left them in 14th place before the individual placing.
Mark King was one place above her in bronze position after jumping a brilliant clear round over the testing fences inside the time. Unfortunately for both William Fox-Pitt and Nichola Wilson, after the show jumping, neither of their scores was counted towards the final standings. William completed a foot perfect clear round on Lionheart but after his nine time-faults across country he was left the lowest placed out of the Brits.
Nicola unfortunately knocked one fence down on Opposition Buzz, meaning that both her and William will not jump in the individual final. This is due to only the top three placed competitors from each country are allowed through.
The jumps for the final individual round were raised to 1m 30 and every rider kept every spectator on the edge of their seats.
At one point it seemed that Sweden's Sara Algotsson Ostholt would win the individual gold after her horse Wega didn't seem to want to be seen touching a fence at all. Crowds were about to erupt in to cheers for the Sweden rider as she was about to become the first female Olympic eventing champion but unfortunately though at the very last second, all that could go wrong did and Wega got a deep stride in to the last oxer just hitting the front rail, knocking it down.
Eventually the individual gold when to Michael Jung, a German who is the first person to be the
European, world and now Olympic champion. That put Sara Algotsson Ostholt into silver position.
German rider Sandra Auffarth, riding the 10-year-old Selle Français gelding Opgun
Louvo, added just 4.8 cross-country time penalties to their dressage
score of 40 to collect to bronze medal.
Mary King and Tina Cook had two fences a piece to finish in fifth and
sixth places respectively, while Zara Phillips improved on her four
faults in the team round to go clear with High Kingdom and finish in
eighth.
During the interval between the team and individual section Mark and I walked around some of the cross country fences from the day before and took it as the perfect opportunity to take photos of the fences. There was no option to queue up for food as the queues just went on for miles and it would have taken too long.
In the end Great Britain took the silver medal and all team members rode their best right until the very end.
"It's disappointing we didn't get gold, but the team's been awesome," said the Queen's grand-daughter, Zara Phillips.
Zara and her team-mates were presented with their medals by her mother, the Princess Royal.
I really cannot begin to describe how amazing the atmosphere is at Greenwich and how exciting is. I completely relished every moment of my time there and the experience was one that I will never forget. If you can get to an Olympic event I really suggest you try your damned hardest to. I now am looking forward to the Paralympic Dressage that I have tickets to and feel that will be every bit as amazing. Receiving tickets for the Olympics as a graduation present is something I will remember for the rest of my life and am so fortunate to have graduated in a year that people will remember for the rest of their lives.
Despite the controversy that has came with the Olympics as to whether Zara Phillips should have been on the team and whether or not she deserved her spot, or the anger that Great Britain didn't win gold in the eventing, I think we need to remember how hard every individual worked. The whole of the team I am sure put their all into the Olympics and every member of the team was picked for a reason. Whether you agreed with Zara being picked due to being the Queens grand-daughter, its irrelevant. Lets be thankful Great Britain worked as hard as they did and were able to at least win a medal on their home ground.
Congratulations to the whole of the British Eventing Team and Good Luck to the rest!
Any opinions? Tweet me at @FurrMane to let me know!
Top 10 individual results:
1. Sam (Michael Jung) GER 40.60;
2. Wega (Sara Algotsson Ostholt) SWE 43.30;
3. Opgun Louvo (Sandra Auffarth) GER 44.80;
4. Nereo (Andrew Nicholson) NZL 49.00;
5. Imperial Cavalier (Mary King) GBR 50.10;
6. Miners Frolic (Tina Cook) GBR 51.00;
7. Master Crusoe (Aoife Clark) IRL 52.50;
8. High Kingdom (Zara Phillips) GBR 53.10;
9. Mr Medicott (Karen O'Connor) USA 53.80;
10. Clifton Promise (Jock Paget) NZL 53.90.
