One discipline down, two to go! Are you feeling the dressage spirit? (Stephen Colbert is feeling the dressage spirit.)
Olympic dressage officially kicked off today with a jog of horse and rider before the ground jury. All the horses passed inspection, although we can’t say the same for rider outfits. Before reading further, please check out this photo gallery from Dressage-News.com–did you have a look?–and now join me in my freak-out: Edward Gal! Who let you out of the Olympic Village dressed like that?!? Orange trousers! Red tie! Nooooo!!!!!
OK, now that we’ve got that out of our system…
Team Grand Prix dressage begins tomorrow (Thursday) at 11 a.m. through 3:30 p.m. local time (that’s 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. ET). This is the order of go.
Update: Both the Grand Prix and the Special count for the team medal. Then the top 18 move on to the freestyle to decide the individual medals. Team medals will be decided by the combined scores of the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Special. The top 18 pairs will move on to the freestyle final to determine the individual champion.
Ten teams and 20 individuals will be representing their countries. The U.S. has drawn sixth in the order of go. If you need a refresher course on U.S. team members replete with video and fun facts, click here. If you need a refresher on how to watch it, although you’re probably a pro by now, and who to turn to for the best coverage, click here.
In the meantime…
Dressage #1! Dressage #1! (Yeah, yeah… of course eventing is #1. But let’s just play along with them for a couple days.)
