Ireland miss out on Olympic spot at World Games
IRELAND dropped to seventh and lost out on an Olympic qualifying spot in the electrifying showjumping team final at the FEI World Equestrian Games in Tryon, USA yesterday where the hosts claimed gold ahead of Sweden in a thrilling third-round jumpoff, and Germany took the bronze.
However, Cian O’Connor (right) and Good Luck go into tomorrow’s individual medaldecider in sixth place and just a fence behind Germany’s Simone Blum at the top of the leaderboard, so an Irish medal is still not completely out of the question.
Shane Sweetnam had two fences down and also collected a time fault, but Shane Breen (Ipswich van de Wolfsakker) and Paul O’Shea (Skara Glen’s Machu Picchu) both faulted just once over a course that was less technical but much taller than the previous day.
Not even a clear from anchorman O’Connor would have been enough for Rodrigo Pessoa’s side to overtake the Australians who claimed that coveted sixth qualifying spot for Tokyo.
He looked set for a clear until a check after the middle element of the triple combination saw his stallion lose power and drop a pole at the last element before galloping home clear the rest of the way.
“I was delighted with Good Luck, he possibly jumped better today than the other days, he’s so relaxed and very confident in the ring,” O’Connor said.
“I blame myself for the fence I had down, I over-slowed him up and it made him jump vertical and he lost the momentum to pop out. But he’s trying his best and we’ll be back on Sunday” O’Connor said.
The team have two more opportunities to qualify for the 2020 Games, at the European Showjumping Championships in Rotterdam next August, and the Nations Cup Final in Barcelona in October 2019.
Tomorrow’s individual final kicks off with O’Connor carrying 6.69 penalty points into the ring, just fractionally behind America’s McLain Ward with 6.08, Italy’s Lorenzo de Luca with 5.9 and Switzerland’s Martin Fuchs in 4.68.
Austria’s Max Kuhner trails Germany’s Blum by 0.5 going into the final day.