Australia, WHAT THE??

Only a few short weeks ago Australia failed to qualify for the Olympic Games at Blenheim. At the time I was there, reporting on the event and the qualifier live. I didn’t say much at the time, to be honest I was lost for words and couldn’t put anything more coherent than a string of four letter words together.

All is not lost for Australia and there is every intention that the Aussies will have a team at the Olympics. Australia should qualify a ‘Composite Team’ but that will not be confirmed until after 1 March 2012, this is based on individual rider rankings.

The question is, how did we get into this position? Australia has an unrivaled Olympic Eventing track record, from the last five games Australia has three team gold and a team silver. We are the reigning silver Olympic medalists.

After a less than perfect WEG where five teams qualified we were left trying to gain our qualification in the regional event. In our region there are really only four teams up for contention, us, the Kiwis, Japan and emerging South Africa. The Kiwis qualified with their bronze in Kentucky last year, South Africa unfortunately couldn’t muster a team to contest the qualifier.
 
So Australia needed to beat Japan, and I heard many voices dismissive of Japan’s chances. Personally I was thinking we actually need to finish first, if we can’t finish it doesn’t matter who we are up against. Secondly, Japan has invested heavily in their Eventing team and have even enlisted the help of many an Aussie over the years including Barry Roycroft, brother of former Aussie Coach Wayne and son to the legendary Bill Roycroft.

So, it was never a done-deal as many had suggested. Our next issue was having a team available to contest the qualifying event. By mutual agreement, Blenheim was agreed as the scene for the competition.

Our selected team included Catherine Burrell, Bill Levitt, Chris Burton, Brook Staples and Lucinda Fredericks. Word is that Lucinda was rushed onto the team at the last minute (to replace who? I don’t know), Catherine is a relatively unknown to riders and fans back down under. Bill has been a constant Aussie presence on the UK European scene for many years as has Sydney 2000 Olympian Brook Staples.

Finally Chris was selected to ride Newsprint with HP Leilani heading to Burghley the week before Blenheim. For a reason unknown to most Newsprint was withdrawn from the Australian team, so they were not available. With Chris and Lani having a minor incident at Burghley they tried to re-route to Blenheim.
 
Being a team event, this change needed the approval of all teams, and Japan did not agree. To be honest I wouldn’t have in their position, Chris and Lani make a formidable combination and I wouldn’t want to be competing against them.

So before the event started the Aussies were down to four out of a possible five combinations. We had a great start and moved to the front. XC didn’t go so well with Lucinda having a crash, so team Australia dropped to last place of the three teams but only 4 points behind rivals Japan. With Japan also losing a combination on the XC phase, there was a lot of hope riding on the shoulders of our team of three.

Bill produced a quality round that left Australia with a hope of qualifying. Unfortunately it was not to be the case, after a consistent steady round, Brook Staples ran into trouble at the B element of the second to last fence, he had a refusal and crashed into the fence requiring a rebuild and a costly bunch of penalties. On his second attempt, disaster struck, they crashed through again. It was initially called as a four for the fence down and later confirmed as a second refusal and thus elimination.

Australia had lost any chance of qualification and Japan won the right to have a full team at next year’s Olympics. I was asked in the aftermath why Australia didn’t bring their ‘A’ team, at the time I had no real response, even now I ask, what is our ‘A’ team?

Australia has a lot of depth of riders, with many at the top of the games both back home and in Europe, we even have a presence in the US with Peter and Henny back. But as I see it we may be suffering a small shortage of horse power as London approaches. I hope I am wrong and Adelaide, only a few short weeks away, will show what talent is left back home. Boekelo has shown that Aussie talent is never far from the top of the leader board. Should some of the Boekelo combinations have been at Blenheim instead?
 
Australia will be back, strong and competitive despite this minor hiccup in our London preparation.

Yours in Eventing,

ESJ