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For Eventing fans, 2019 was an exceptional year, with two elite events joining the FEI Eventing Nations Cup™ to provide thrills and a few nail-biting moments...
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games just around the corner, the competition was stepped up a notch, as teams vied for berths to Japan next summer.
Let’s take a look back at the high points of the year in Eventing!
FEI European Championships
The action moved to Luhmühlen, Germany, next, where the home athletes towered above the rest.
Team Germany took the gold medal, edging out defending champions Great Britain, who took the silver. The Team bronze was awarded to Sweden, with no complaints there, as that podium spot helped them punch a ticket to Tokyo, along with Italy.
The German triumph couldn’t have happened without solid performances from team members Andreas Dibowski and Kai Rüder, and help from their top combos: Ingrid Klimke with SAP Hale Bob OLD and Michael Jung with new partner fischerChipmunk FRH. Both seasoned champs took an early lead with their Dressage scores, followed by Great Britain’s Laura Collett aboard London 52.
After the Cross Country element on Mike Etherington-Smith’s daunting course, Jung was in the lead, chased by Klimke, with Collett sadly having been eliminated. Lt. Col. Thibault Vallette of France moved up into third, and team Germany was still far out in front.
It all came down to Jumping on the final day. There were a number of combos who had gone clear inside the time on the Cross Country track, meaning their scores were so tightly bunched together that only one fence down in Jumping would spell the difference between victory and defeat.
A tough course laid out by Marco Behrens got the better of many. Sadly for Vallette, Qing du Briot saw the top rail on the Longines oxer come down, and it paved the way for Cathal Daniels of Ireland and his diminutive mare Rioghan Rua to move up into third place to take the Individual bronze.
The battle was on for the gold and silver positions. Ingrid Klimke wasn’t going to repeat her loss at the FEI World Equestrian Games™, and the 51-year-old defending European champion made her way carefully but speedily around the course to finish clear and end on her Dressage score of 22.2 points.
Unfortunately, Jung hit the B element on a double combination, and with the penalty points saw his chance for a gold evaporate. Klimke retained her title and became only the second person in history to win back-to-back FEI European Championships on the same horse.
