Michael and Nathalie Pollard are attending the Olympics this weekend to cheer on Nathalie’s father, Carl Bouckaert, who is competing for Belgium. Michael has generously offered to keep us updated on his experiences as a rider watching in London. If you don’t follow Michael on Twitter and Facebook, you should do so now or risk missing out on awesomeness. Today michael torments me with stories of the favorite club I have never been to–the Ministry of Sound.
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From Michael:
Following a good day of dressage spectating Saturday, things got interesting. Our first order of business was crashing the USEF house party. It was great to see everyone, and I probably enjoyed a bit too much free champagne. At one point I got pulled in by a photographer to take pictures with sponsors. I’m not sure if they actually knew who I was, or if they thought I was competing, but I decided the best play was just to go with it and thank them for all of the support. It was really nice of Jim Wolf and the USEF team to let us come by, so I need to send out another thank you!
As can happen after a few drinks and no real responsibility the next morning (including no children), we decided to carry on to a nightclub. Since we were in London, there seemed to be no choice but to head to Ministry of Sound. Upon our arrival we passed security (the man with the rubber glove was surprisingly gentle) and paid a small fortune to enter. It is twelve thirty by now and the club is EMPTY. We have a water, and explore the many rooms and DJs playing that night. Within an hour, things start picking up and the people watching gets interesting.
If you haven’t been to the UK lately, then let me introduce you to the latest female fashion trend seen in both nightclubs and Olympic venues. As it is difficult and mildly inappropriate to show pictures of this new phenomenon, a description will need to suffice. Picture high waisted Daisy duke shorts, then imagine those pulled up over the belly button, so that perhaps a third of the bottom hangs out. Though this isn’t the best look for my taste in any circumstance, it certainly could be utilized less frequently by the English women; as I would say that 2/3 of the women at the club were sporting this look. There were more than a few occasions that I thanked my lucky stars that I am no longer in the dating pool.
The music was great however, and we met a semi-famous actress while at the club, so all was not lost! After hours of drinking water, we finally made it safely to bed.
Morning dawned much too quickly and we actually needed to sprint in the end to make it in time for Zara’s test. As I don’t really want to go over all of the rides, I’ll just give you my thoughts on the dressage as a whole and where I think the US fits.
First, it is really important to keep in mind that eventing is NOT a dressage competition! There is still plenty to do and anything said today could seem completely inconsequential tomorrow.
However, we must not always start from behind and count on our tremendous jumping form to drag us back to a medal. The standard has continued to progress, and I think as a nation, we need to be honest about where we stack up. In the end, I think our team did a great job, and nearly everyone got the most out of what they had on the day. But, the key things I think separated the very top from the quite good were accuracy, precision, and balance. The Germans, Aussies, and British were surgical in their movements and transitions. They looked like they were really taking their time with each movement, rather than pushing more forward. I really didn’t see any difference in horsepower or rider ability between the US team and those ahead of us; but there are certainly small points that we miss which others are gaining. I would also point out that the people who did quite well from less traditional eventing nations have been training in Germany over the last couple of years. Clearly we can’t and shouldn’t all go live in Germany. However, having spent some time there, I understand what makes them successful… Relentless pursuit of perfecting the details. Though I am still quite far from perfect, I have been fortunate enough to get to work with some of these same trainers. That, in my opinion, is the difference. The good news is, as Yoshi Oiwa proved, there is nothing stopping us from beating the best at their own game except our willingness to work towards it.
Good luck tomorrow guys and girls!
