Well done USA!

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Blogging has been a bit sporadic: school holidays have eaten up my time. They always do, and it always takes me by surprise, every single time.

Still, I have found enough time to watch the showjumping. Excellent course building, and brilliant performances by the USA, and in particular Canada, with only 3 team members and therefore no discard score.

Of course the UK were also down to three after John Whittaker's Peppermill had a stiff back, but you would have thought from listening to the British commentating on the event on BBC that this was the sole reason we didn't do that well.

Well, Canada only had three and they still managed to finish in silver medal position.

And huge congratulations too to Mara Yamauchi, who came 6th in the Women's Marathon. Whilst on the subject of Olympic gripes, the huha over Paula Radcliffe in the Marathon makes me cross; not so much the huha itself; it's more the way Mara Yamauchi is relegated to a brief mention, or a distant boxed off paragraph after long discussions of poor Paula's emotional bravery. Of course it's dreadful when someone's dreams come to naught, but both girls have had this as their focus for 4 years and worked, I'm sure, equally hard and it's a pity this isn't properly recognised.

Still, I'm looking forward to the individual showjumping now, and I hope Ben Maher continues to do well. I do like his quiet style of riding (so unlike some "old fashioned" riders who seem to be all hands), and I am also hoping Rodrigo Pessoa does well. I do love watching him ride.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I watched some of the showjumping last night and came to the conclusion that GB needs some younger riders and that the horses need more schooling and a gentler, Maher-like style of riding - they can certainly jump but a lot of the errors seemed to come when they we fighting the rider's hands, sme of which were like lead.
22 August 2008 at 12:50
Jane Badger said…
Vanessa - well yes! The final was excellent I thought: a really well constructed course and a good result. Such a shame Ben Maher's horse tired at the end, but the end result was very fair.
23 August 2008 at 10:03
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