IRELAND’S EVENTERS HAVE finished in ninth place in the team standings at the Paris Olympics, with four-time Olympian Austin O’Connor the highest-ranked Irish athlete in the individual rankings in 17th.
Susie Berry took 31st on her Olympic debut and, with Sarah Ennis having to withdraw when her horse, Acton Lady M, picked up a minor injury during an excellent cross-country run yesterday, London Olympic hero Aoife Clark stepped in for today’s showjumping round.
That injury-enforced substitution cost the Irish team 20 penalty points, however, which would have seen them finish just outside the medal positions in the team table.
Great Britain took team gold, with hosts France claiming silver and a Japanese team that included Irish Sport Horse MGH Grafton Street taking bronze.
Legendary German rider, Michael Jung, meanwhile, was crowned the individual Olympic champion for the third time in four Games, going clear on Chipmunk FRH in this afternoon’s showjumping final.
Ireland were forced to play catch-up after a disappointing return from the dressage in their opening round, but Eventing High Performance director Dag Albert was was equally proud of his team’s stellar efforts thereafter.
“I’m disappointed, yes, but I’m also extremely proud of the guys: they gave everything they had to achieve the best possible result but we just didn’t get the rub of the green,” Albert said.
“We had a mountain to climb after dressage and we felt unlucky to have been on that score at the time. Sarah’s horse had spooked and Austin felt he should have had a lower score, and then obviously Sarah’s horse getting injured sucked the life out of the team a little bit.
“But they are so resilient and maintained their standards, and I thought they all jumped great today. Aoife and Susie had unlucky fours and Austin was desperately unlucky with his two down.
“I’m delighted for him, though, that he finished on a high, and I do believe there’s so much more to come.
It’s Susie’s first Olympics and Sarah’s mare is only 10 so she has a really bright future, and Austin is Austin – he has been delivering with Colorado Blue for a while now and is a real leader, so while I’m disappointed now, I’m still optimistic for the future with this team.
Mallow’s four-time Olympic veteran O’Connor, who finished 13th in Tokyo aboard Colorado Blue, had put himself in contention yesterday with a stunning clear on an extremely difficult cross-country track.
That put O’Connor in 14th but after dropping the last two jumps in the morning’s showjumping round, a medal chance slipped from his grasp.
O’Connor and ‘Salty’, however, still produced a clear round to a rapturous reception in the afternoon’s individual final.
“I’m relieved, to be honest,” said O’Connor. “He showed that all the ability and the want is still there. There would have been people questioning if he was finished if he hadn’t jumped clear in the final, after the two down earlier.
“He had actually jumped very, very well until late on. It really was just two fences too many. There wasn’t really any analysing to do, either. Basically we just didn’t get high enough over the last two and that was it.
“But after that, he’s shown that he’s a long way off being finished, there’s no two ways about it, and it’s a great way to wrap Paris up.”
“It’s been a rollercoaster, really,” O’Connor added. “I felt very hard done by with the scoring in my dressage, and then had a great day yesterday. Obviously I was disappointed with the first round today but then very happy with our round in the final.
“From a team perspective, we were unfortunate too – obviously having to swap in a substitution is costly, points wise, but Aoife Clark has been a brilliant teammate all week and she got her chance to jump today.
“We’ve great team spirit and everyone has done their very best – we brought the best we had, and it’s onwards and upwards now.”
