Monday, 02 August 2021
After a world-class day of cross-country riding, Team GB started the final day of the eventing competition with a commanding 17.9 penalty lead over the other nations, giving them four poles in hand over next-placed Australia. The last time that Great Britain had won gold at the Olympic Games was 49 years ago at the 1972 Munich Games, when Richard Meade also won individual gold, so the pressure was on the shoulders of Oliver Townend, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen to rewrite history.
With the jumping running in reverse order of merit, Tom and the 14-year-old Toledo de Kerser, owned by Fred and Penny Barker, Jane Inns and Ali McEwen, were first in for Team GB. Toledo de Kerser has an excellent jumping record, and this reputation was proved well-founded when they put in an easy clear across a course that had been causing plenty of problems across the night.
“That felt incredible! He’s feeling fresh and very well,” said Tom. “It’s been fun jumping in the evening, but he was incredible – I was just putting him on the spot and he was popping away. I think he was enjoying the clicking of the cameras under the fences, which were making him go even higher. He’s class, everyone who follows eventing knows that he’s class, so it’s just up to me on top.”
The clear gave the team the ideal start and also helped Tom’s individual standing.
Even after tackling Sunday’s cross-country course with all guns blazing, London 52 was feeling very full of himself when he and Laura entered the Equestrian Park stadium. The 12-year-old gelding, who Laura co-owns with Karen Bartlett and Keith Scott, is the youngest and least experienced of the British trio, but is another with a strong record in the showjumping phase.
It was all going smoothly until they turned for the fence with the water tray, which took London 52 by surprise as the bright lights of the stadium reflected in the night air. It is a mark of Laura’s quality as a rider that, after sending that fence tumbling, she was able to collect London 52 back up before the tricky treble combination and complete the rest of the course without further issues. It kept the team well in touch, however, dropped them down from a place on the podium individually.
“He was jumping mega, his usual self but, as I came round the corner, I think the light was shining on the water and he just suddenly started to draw back,” Laura explained. “He just spooked, basically, but I’m lucky that he’s a very good jumper and was able to recover and come straight to the treble. It didn’t phase him, and he got it back together and finished really nicely. Obviously I’m gutted and it’s a real shame, but it could have been a whole lot worse in that situation so I’m just relieved that we managed to scrape it back and hopefully haven’t put too much pressure on Oliver.
“He wasn’t going to have another one after hitting that many poles – he doesn’t like hitting them! I think I’d have been even more annoyed if it had been an unlucky rub, there’s no doubting that was coming down and luckily we didn’t come down as well! It’s one of those things – he’s never jumped under lights before, it’s a huge occasion in there and he’s still pretty inexperienced, so he’ll have learned from it and be better next time.”
Still with a heathy buffer between second-placed Australia, it was down to Oliver and 14-year-old Ballaghmor Class – owned by Karyn Shuter, Angela Hislop and Val Ryan – to bring home the gold medal for Team GB – and continue their campaign for an individual medal of the same colour. One fence fell, but it wasn’t enough to affect the team result – Team GB had not only secured gold, but they’d done it on the lowest ever finishing score in the history of the modern Games and by the comfortable margin of 13.9 penalties ahead of Australia in silver with France a further 1.3 points adrift in bronze.
“He’s a jumper that finds a rail in most rounds, but at the same time he’s always very competitive and when he jumps a clear he generally wins,” said Oliver. “We’ll continue to put up with him! He’s a phenomenal athlete, one of the best horses in the world and I’ve got no complaints about any of his performances.
“From my point of view, I didn’t know how many fences we had in hand – I just go in there and try to jump a clear inside the time, that was my job, but when you’re surrounded by the horsepower that us three have had for the last week at this competition, it makes your job an awful lot easier.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet but, at the same time, we were three riders on exceptional horses and I think that’s what been so special – that all three have been on our horse of a lifetime and it all coming together in the same year, an Olympic year, with these super-special horses. We knew, coming here, that we had a very good chance.”
There were a number of things that made this team gold medal a special one – the 49-year gap since it last happened, the record-breaking finishing score, and also the fact that it has been achieved by three combinations making their Olympic debut – albeit ones with excellent track records at the highest level of the sport. So what was the magic formula that brought it all together in Tokyo?
“The chances of having the three horses all at the same time, all with jockeys who are able to steer them in the right direction and for them to land sound, at an Olympics, is just an amazing thing,” explained Oliver. “These three horses selected themselves, their form was absolutely inarguable – three CCI5* winners all within recent years and all have arrived here in the best possible form. To have that puts a bit more pressure on us because we’ve come here knowing that we should be winning if things go our way, and to win is just a huge, huge.
“We’ve discussed it and joked all week that it’s only three years until Paris, and it’s possible that these three horses could all get to Paris. From a team point of view, with these two guys, I’ve never been as happy or as comfortable – that’s no disrespect to the previous teams, but for whatever reason we’ve definitely got a rapport and we’ve got stuck in together, and we’ve definitely tried to help each other where necessary, so it’s been a very, very good and eye-opening experience for us as a team, together.”
“It’s a completely surreal experience,” said Laura. “I’m a little bit lost for words – just to be here at an Olympics is a dream come true, let alone to win a gold medal. It’s going to take a few days, weeks, months for this to actually sink in. A big thank you to these guys, it’s been an unbelievable team experience and, like Oliver said, we all knew we were sat on exceptional horses coming here and that added a bit of pressure knowing there were amazing horses left at home. We felt we needed to prove a point, that the selectors had made the right decision because they had a really tough choice to make this year, so it’s a massive relief that we didn’t let anyone down and proved just how special these horses are.”
“What it boils down to is that we’re new to this experience, we all three love pressure and we’ve come together as a three, with three amazing horses, all at the same time,” added Tom. “Thanks goes to our amazing teams at home, to National Lottery funding, to everything that come in to us, to the training and coaching we’ve had along the way.
“I’ve loved the pressure this week, it’s why I get up in the morning. I love doing the young horses, but for me I love the pressure of coming here. I love being in a team and I love that there’s been pressure on with such great horses and riders at home – we’ve had to perform, and to get the team gold has been special.”
And what will be done to celebrate this little moment of eventing history?
“As a team, we’ve never had trouble finding a way to celebrate,” laughed Oliver. “I don’t think it’ll be with tea and a biscuit!”
However, the work wasn’t over yet. With all three Team GB riders through to the individual final, it was a nervous wait to see if any of them would be able to capitalise on strong places for a spot on the podium.
First in were Laura Collett and London 52, who appeared to be having a textbook round until trouble on the final line, which resulted in two fences down. This left them on a final score of 37.8, putting them in ninth.
“He did much better in the last round, but he just fought a bit coming down the last line,” explained Laura. “He’s never jumped at this time of night before and the lights and things like that, although there were no crowds here, it was a pressurised situations and he’ll have learned an awful lot from it. Hopefully, come Paris in a few years’ time, he’ll have three years more experienced and we can leave the jumps up.”
Their previous clear round had boosted Tom and Toledo de Kerser onto the podium, so now it was a case of trying to replicate this feat – and replicate it they did, adding just 0.4 of a time penalty to their dressage score to give them a final total of 29.3. This result guaranteed them a medal, but the question was now which colour it would be.
“He went higher and more fluid than in the last round,” said Tom. “Scott [Brash] gave me a lot of help before I started, which was great. For us, coming out again, you’ve got no idea – it could have gone one of two ways, but he got more excitable. Scott gave me some help with the lines and the distances, so it was in my head, it was set. You just crack on with the job – if I get Toledo in the right place, he’ll get up in the air, so it’s only me that can mess it up, really. He thinks the poles are made of lava!”
Straight after Tom came Oliver and Ballaghmor Class, hoping to defend the podium position that they’d maintained throughout the competition. Sadly, it wasn’t to be – they added a rail and time penalties to their total score, leaving them on 32.4 and dropping them to fifth place.
“If you jump horses, you have fences down, and unfortunately I had a fence down – but I had two very good rounds,” said a very philosophical Oliver. “Today wasn’t my day, but I’m very fortunate that I have a lot of good days, probably more than my fair share, and this gives me the hunger to keep going. There’s still room for improvement and still another prize eludes me, which will keep me hungry and getting out of bed and jumping on the novice horses, hoping to find the next superstar and put things right.”
A clear round from Germany’s Julia Krajewski secured her and Amande de B’Neville the gold medal position – the first time a woman has ever taken the eventing individual title – and earned Tom and Toledo de Kerser the individual silver, with Australian Andrew Hoy, competing in his eighth Olympics aged 62, taking bronze with Vassily de Lassos.
“It’s not really hitting me! It’s taking a bit of time,” said Tom. “It’s all been super-special and Toldeo’s been unbelievable. To do it with him, too – he’s been a special partner and I’ve messed up in many places over a few years where I shouldn’t have, so to give it back in some ways is great.”
This wraps up what is undeniably a hugely successful week for the Team GB eventing trio where our riders take spots on another two podiums to add gold and silver to the dressage squad’s brace of bronze medals.
“It’s absolutely incredible,” summed up Team Manager Richard Waygood. “The pressure these guys were under, coming here in statistically a really strong position, and they’ve been carrying the expectations on their shoulders of the whole of Great Britain, and they’ve absolutely delivered. I said earlier that they’ve got the character to deliver on the field of play, so have their horses, but they’ve also got the technical skill. All credit to them, they’ll be going home as national heroes. We’re going to wrap them up and keep them safe for Paris!”
The full results for the team competition are available here, and the individual results are here.