Copenhagen (DEN) 14 August - 18 August 1974

Germany is back on top

For the first time, the scores of the Grand Prix and the ride off were not added.

Germany regained top position ahead of the Soviet Union and Switzerland.

The legendary Reiner Klimke (FRG), who would go on to become one of the sport’s most successful athletes, won his first of two individual world titles riding Mehmet. Fellow German Liselott Linsenhoff on Piaff took silver and the 1970 individual champion Yelena Petushkova (URS) on Pepel was third.

Dynasty

A lawyer by profession, Reiner Klimke is one of Dressage’s most successful athletes of all time.

The son of a psychologist and a neurologist, Klimke started his equestrian career as a successful Eventer. He won team silver and team gold at the 1957 and 1959 European Eventing Championships respectively and was on the German Eventing team at the Rome 1960 Olympic Games. However, Dressage would be the discipline where his star would truly shine helped by his remarkable horses Dux, Mehmed, and Ahlerich.

Reiner Klimke won eight medals – six of them in gold – at five Olympic Games along with another seven medals at World Championships.

He is the father of double Olympic Eventing champion Ingrid Klimke, who in 2019 was voted Peden Bloodstock FEI Best Athlete, and the grandfather of Eventer Greta Busacker, who in 2021 won the Longines FEI Rising Star Award.

Klimke was a member of the state parliament of North-Rhine Westfalen from 1990 to 1995. He served on the FEI Dressage Committee and in 1991 was awarded the Olympic Order, the Olympic Movement’s highest accolade.

Reiner Klimke passed away of a heart attack in 1999 in his native city of Münster. The sad event took place only a year before the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in which he had aspired to compete.