German giants do it again - Team gold number 14!
For the fourteenth time in the long history of the Olympic Games, Germany claimed the Team Dressage title at Baji Koen Equestrian Park in Tokyo tonight. They have now won nine of the last ten Olympic team titles, denied only by Great Britain at London in 2012. In the battle between the eight nations that qualified from the Grand Prix, it came down to a two-way tussle between Great Britain and USA for silver and bronze. Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Portugal filleds the remaining places.
In line with the exciting new format, the Grand Prix Special was divided into three Groups, and German riders posted the biggest scores in each division to put the result beyond any doubt. Dorothee Schneider and Showtime led the way with a super mark of 80.608, and world number one Isabell Werth produced a breathtaking test with her mare Bella Rose to put 83.298 on the board.
It was left to final team-member Jessica von Bredow-Werndl to round it up and, despite a mistake that would normally be punishing, the pair who took the Grand Prix by storm were so technically brilliant they put an Olympic Grand Prix Special record score of 84.666 on the board to wrap it up definitively.
The Americans pulled out all the stops to overtake the British thanks to stunning rides from Adrienne Lyle (Salvino), Steffen Peters (Suppenkasper) and Sabine Schut-Kery (Sanceo). Britain’s Carl Hester (En Vogue), Charlotte Fry (Everdale) and Charlotte Dujardin (Gio) took the bronze.