Team GB has made another equestrian championship at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the team finals of the showjumping, thanks to impressive rounds by Ben Maher, Harry Charles and Scott Brash earlier today (Thursday 1 August).

The team incurred just eight faults in total, with Ben jumping clear and Harry and Scott both having once fence down, leaving them easily within the top 10 nations who have made it to tomorrow’s final.

Harry’s feat was all the more impressive given that he fractured his wrist in a fall in Aachen just a few weeks ago. Fortunately, his father Peter kept Romeo 88 ticking over while his rider recovered.

“When I got home, I was wearing a brace and I decided that if I could ride at Hickstead last week that I could ride the Olympics,” Harry said. “I got back on Romeo 10 days ago and it worked well, no pain, so I said, ‘OK we’re fine’, and that was that, happy days!”

The most influential fence on today’s course was the penultimate triple combination, with eight horses lowering the vertical on the way in and 24 of the 57 starters kicking out the narrow plank on top of the middle element. It was there that Harry picked up his four faults.

Scott and Jefferson also incurred four faults at the penultimate triple combination, but at the first element for them.

“I was maybe a smidgen too deep and he just touched it on the way up, so maybe it was my fault a bit,” said Scott. “I think it was quite an unlucky fault really, so you learn from that ahead of tomorrow, but I was really delighted with how he jumped everything else. He felt like he skipped around!”

Ben said it was a relief to get the competition started after “a lot of waiting around and not knowing what’s coming in the first round”.

“It’s a big enough test today and Dallas Vegas was listening and really on point for me so I’m happy,” he said. “Normally at these events there’s always some different fences and we already see that today. I don’t know what the other riders are saying but things are coming quick enough today, it’s quite careful jumping and there are no second chances this week!”

Another team who secured a place in the medal decider is Germany, who made it to the top of the standings without a fault on their scoresheet. USA finished second with just six faults, while Great Britain, Belgium and The Netherlands filled the next three slots with eight faults apiece. Ireland finished sixth with nine faults and the hosts, France, finished seventh when putting 12 faults on the board.

All riders will start from scratch for tomorrow’s final, which kicks off at 1pm (GMT).

Images by FEI/Benjamin Clark

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