Eric Lamaze is all smiles with his second individual Olympic medal.
The last day capped off with a bronze by Eric and his gutsy little mare, Fine Lady!! What an absolutely incredible way to end these Games. In the history of the Olympic Games, Canada has only won three individual medals in equestrian sport and Eric has won two of them. The third, of course, belonging to the other Quebec native Michel Vaillancourt who won silver at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal on Branch County.
In fact, to take it a bit further, Canada has only ever won three team medals and he was part of one of those as well:
1968 – Mexico – Show Jumping Team Silver
James Day and Canadian Club
Thomas Gayford and Big Dee
Jim Elder and The Immigrant
1988 – Seoul – Dressage Team Bronze
Cynthia Neale-Ishoy and Dynasty
Eva Pracht and Emirage
Gina Smith and Malte
Ashley Nicoll and Reipo
2008 – Beijing (Hong Kong) – Show Jumping Team Silver
Jill Henselwood and Special Ed
Eric Lamaze and Hickstead
Ian Millar and In Style
Mac Cone and Ole
There was a large Canadian cheering section here to support the jumpers, but it was nice that so many were able to follow along from home in real time. CBC has a major new push to give digital platforms the same kind of prominence as TV. Hopefully this initiative was a success and generated enough revenue for them to continue to offer this awesome service.
Aside from the livestreaming, social media was completely full of Olympic related posts and the FEI’s new hashtag #TwoHearts. The IOC is concerned with appealing to millennials which seems to mean being prominently featured on social media. I gather that is also what the FEI is trying to accomplish with all their posts of horses doing other sports. I thought it was quite bizarre, but then I’m not a millennial… Even if it was a touch weird, good on them for being proactive.
Hopefully our loud voice on social media will make up for the lackluster ticket sales. I was thrilled to see the stands near capacity during show jumping, but they were only about a quarter full for eventing and not quite half full for dressage. The good news is that tickets sales only represent 5% of the IOC’s revenue, so that’s not going to be the deciding factor.
The fans were pretty sparse during the dressage team final.
The IOC forecasts upwards of $5 billion in revenue this year, of which 45% comes from sponsors like Coca Cola, McDonalds, Visa, and Swatch/Omega (which, incidentally, owns Longines). Another 47% of IOC revenue comes from selling the broadcast rights to different countries. In Canada, for example, CBC/Radio-Canada, TSN, Sportsnet, and RDS purchased the rights for the 2014 Sochi Olympics and these summer Games for a reported $90 million. In 2014, Bloomberg reported that American network NBC agreed to pay $7.65 billion for the rights to broadcast the games on television and online until 2032.
Aside from all the early nastiness like stray bullets and (legit) muggings, these games ended well with great sport. I hope that we will be able to say the same for the Paralymics which runs September 11-16th. The International Paralympic Committee had a major press conference about the Rio2016 funding shortfalls and the subsequent changes that will be implemented to ensure the games continue. While the large Deodoro Olympic Park will be closed, the equestrian venue will remain intact and the competition will proceed.
Good luck to our Para-Dressage Team:
Robyn Andrews of St. John’s, N.L. & Fancianna, owned by Robyn Andrews
Lauren Barwick of Langley, B.C. & Onyx, owned by Equestrian Canada
Ashley Gowanlock of Surrey, B.C. & Di Scansano, owned by Wendy Christoff
Roberta Sheffield of Lincolnshire, UK & Double Agent, owned by Roberta Sheffield
