Day 7: US Leads After Show Jumping Qualifying Round

Aug 15, 2008 2 Comments by Jackie

With three out of four of the American riders going clean, and the bottom score being dropped anyway, the US Olympic Equestrian Team is leading the show jumping event after qualifiers.

The qualifying round of the show jumping included all 77 competitors, and started with those who were riding as individuals only. A total of 13 riders had clean rounds — no jump or time faults — including Beezie Madden, Will Simpson, and McLain Ward of the USA. Ian Millar of Canada, who had one rail down, made history when he tied the record for the athlete competing in the most Olympic Games when he took to the arena for his 9th Olympics since his debut in 1972.

The course was just challenging enough to limit the clean rounds, but doable enough that riders with a great eye and horses with a great jump were able to navigate it well. All of the jumps were designed with Chinese themes, including vibrant colors and intricate patterns.

The US came out on the top of the qualifying round, but scores will start over with Round 1. All horse and rider teams move on to Round 1; the qualifying round determines order of go for Round 1 and also counts toward the individual placings.

The top team placements in the qualifying round were:

1 USA
2 Switzerland
2 Brazil
2 Canada
5 Norway
6 Netherlands
6 Great Britain
8 Australia

The riders with clean rounds were:

Christina Liebherr (No Mercy), Switzerland
Pedro Veniss (Un Blanc De Blancs), Brazil
Taizo Sugitani (California), Japan
Mac Cone (Ole), Canada
Stein Endresen (Le Beau), Norway
McLain Ward (Sapphire), USA
Patrick Lam (Urban), Hong Kong
Bernardo (Chupa Chup) Brazil
Vincent Voorn (Alpapillon-Armanie), Netherlands
Niklaus Schurtenberger (Cantus), Switzerland
Eric Lamaze (Hickstead), Canada
Will Simpson (Carlsson Vom Dach), USA
Beezie Madden (Authentic), USA

Laura Kraut and Cedric of the US had 5 faults, Jill Henselwood of Canada had 1, Roderigo Pessoa of Brazil had 1, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum of Germany had 6, and Ludger Beerbaum of Germany (who lost the gold medal for his team 4 years ago when traces of illegal drugs were found in his horse, disqualifying them after their win) had 10 faults.

The Olympic show jumping competition will continue Sunday evening in Hong Kong with Round 1. It will air live on NBCOlympics.com Sunday, August 17 at 7:15 am (doesn’t look like this round will be on TV). If you can’t watch it Sunday morning, NBC will post the video in their long-form rewind section after it airs live. Go to the Olympic equestrian video channel to watch show jumping online.