The reigning Olympic champions of show jumping proved their mettle once again on Friday at the ECCO FEI World Championships in Herning, Denmark, running away with the team championship and securing World gold. Believe it or not, this is the first time Sweden has taken the World Championship title.
The Dutch and British teams also stepped up to the steep challenge set by Dutch course designer Louis Konickx, capitalizing on mistakes made by other countries to steadily move up onto the final podium. In total, five teams will move forward with qualification berths for the 2024 Olympics in Paris: Sweden, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Host country France will automatically qualify for the Games, and their team finished sixth for their efforts this week.
Perhaps one of the best stories from the week was the all-female Canadian team, who impressed to make the team final thanks to some gutsy rounds during the first two parts of competition. The Canadians suffered some blows with rails down on Friday, prompting them to lose out on an Olympic qualification, but they nonetheless left quite an impression with their efforts.
Meanwhile, the defending World Champions from the U.S. failed to make the team final, finishing in 11th as a team and sending McLain Ward and Brian Moggre forward as individuals. Sadly, both McLain and Brian encountered trouble on course and will not move ahead to Sunday’s individual final. It’s quite a blow for a historically strong program that saw them clinch gold in Tryon during the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games as well as team silver in Tokyo after a thrilling battle with the #SuperSwedes.
Catch up on scores from Herning 2022 here and tune in tomorrow to see who will be crowned the 2022 individual world champion!
