Great Britain missed out on a medal in the 2022 FEI World Eventing Championships in Pratoni del Vivaro, Italy, but their fourth place was enough for a medal. It means that a full cohort of one team and three individual members in all three disciplines will take part in Olympic equestrian at Paris 2024.
In eventing, there is one team event, and one individual event. With a team made up of three riders, all three would also automatically qualify for the individual. With the first team place going to hosts France, the next seven would be decided in Pratoni. Sixteen teams entered, with the top seven excluding France gaining a place.
Starting with the dressage, first to go for GB was Rosalind Canter on Lordships Graffalo, who got 26.2 points. Next was Yasmin Ingham, who was not part of the team but only the individual event. After that came Laura Collett on London 52, who achieved 19.3 points. On Day 2, Tom McEwen got a score of 25.6 on Toledo de Kerser, and finally Oliver Towend got a score on Ballaghmor Class got 24.3 points. After Carter’s score was eliminated (the higher the score the worse in eventing; each rider is given a percentage score, this is rounded down to one decimal point, and then subtracted from 100 to give the final score; the best three scores are considered), GB were leading on 69.2 points, 6.9 ahead of second-placed Germany, and 20.9 points ahead of Switzerland in ninth (with France in sixth, eighth would be enough to qualify).
In the cross-country section, Canter got there in time to receive no more points, but Collett took a total of 38.8 penalty points (18.8 for time and 20.0 for a refusal on fence 7C) to take her total to 58.1. McEwen took 4.8 time points to go up to 30.4, while Townend salvaged some pride by also going perfect. Now Collett’s score was the one to be eliminated, GB were on 80.9, down in third, 4.8 behind Germany (who had added no more points with three riders going perfectly), but had now moved 31.5 ahead of Belgium in eighth, France had dropped to fourteenth by this point and were out of contention.
Finally was the jumping, and Collett was to go first, she knocked down fence five to take home just 4.0 penalty points and finishing with 62.1. Next was McEwen, who was so close but knocked down fence 11B to also get four points and finish with 34.4. It was starting to feel like it wasn’t GB’s day, but then Canter went perfect to raise GB hopes. Those hopes turned out to be false though, as Townend knocked down fences two, 11A, twelve, and thirteen and finished with sixteen points to end up on 40.3. The final result was fourth on 100.9, 5.7 behind leaders Germany, and a frustrating 0.6 behind runners-up the USA and just 0.2 behind New Zealand in third, although still 50.7 ahead of eighth-placed Belgium. Softening the blow was fifteen thousand euros (3750 each), although somewhat upsettingly, Ingham won gold in the individual event, putting her in would have won a medal, and if the rider she replaced wasn’t Canter, that would have been a gold medal.
Either way, GB qualified a full compliment to Paris, which was always considered a guarantee; now it’s confirmed and we can relax.
GB Games 