What a lackluster finale to the Pan Am Games equestrian events, especially after the tremendous excitement when Canada won Show Jumping gold. As someone pointed out, there’s just a bit of irony in the fact that the Show Jumpers were the only Canadian team to win gold, but also the only Canadian team to not win an individual medal. My complaint about the fact that the last day was a clean slate wouldn’t have made a bit of difference, since all three to make the final – Yann, Eric and Ian – had far too many faults on the last day to be competitive. Oh well, it was still an incredibly successful Pan Am Games for the CET: three team medals, one of each colour, and two individual medals – a silver and a bronze. They certainly gave the fans plenty to cheer about. That is, the fans that were able to see it of course.
One of the drawbacks of equestrian sport at multi-sport events is the fact that the equestrian venue is usually far from the beating heart of the Games (London was a glorious, unforgettable exception). I had never been to the Caledon Equestrian Park before, so I had no benchmark to compare atmosphere with their usual shows. The venue, as I’ve said already, was beautifully prepared and maintained. I didn’t talk to anyone who had anything but compliments for the venue and for the organization of the sport. Frying spectators with sore feet from standing in long lines for a gross hot dog might be another story, but I’ve said plenty on that already.
Maybe I’m just getting too old for these gigs, because in a lot of ways the atmosphere felt like just another horse show. When a Canadian entered and exited, there was definitely a big spike in the energy level, but otherwise it was a pretty quiet affair. I’m not sorry I went to Toronto (just to pre-empt any anonymous dribblers tempted to make nasty remarks about me dissing a free trip, all my expenses to these events are paid for by yours truly. No free rides for freelancers), but I can’t say I’ll be treasuring the memory five years from now. Yeah, I’m definitely getting too old, or too jaded, or too something.
The Jumpers and Eventers can now focus their attention entirely on spending the next year preparing for Rio with a killer team. Unfortunately for Dressage, thanks to the FEI’s clawback of both the fourth team WEG qualifier (which would have meant the US didn’t need the spot they earned in Toronto) AND the second Pan Am team qualifier, an intense campaign and a great deal of money will have to be spent in an effort to get two more athletes far enough up the Olympic ranking list to capture two more individual spots to add to Belinda’s (and Belinda is not eligible to gain more than one Olympic spot) and make up a composite team. More irony for today’s blog, since Canada had by far its best results at last year’s WEG and this year’s Pan Am Games, but for the first time in recent memory the Dressage team is not qualified for the Olympics. Canada will almost certainly gain a second individual spot by having the best ranked GP rider in the Americas (the US is already qualified with a team so they aren’t competing for this spot) when the qualification period ends next March.
The following countries already have teams qualified for Rio: Brazil (host), Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands (top three teams from Normandy) and Australia (by being the top placed team in its region at WEG – not much of a contest, since they were the ONLY nation from their region with a team in Normandy), and the US from the Pan Ams.
I’ve just taken the current Olympic rankings list and done a bit of hypothetical calculation to see how likely a Canadian is to get a third individual spot. I’m assuming Russia will get the one team spot for their region at a ‘special qualifying event’. Using last year’s WEG results to come up with the likeliest three teams to qualify at this year’s European Championships (Spain, Sweden and Denmark), here is what I find if the spots were to be allocated today, and taking Belinda off the list as she isn’t allowed to qualify two spots:
Megan Lane is the highest ranked Canadian, and when you remove all the individuals from the countries noted above, she is in ninth place. Only the top six will get a spot. There’s a lot of horse showing ahead of everyone between now and March 2016, and fortunately for the Canadians, the GDF offers many opportunities to accumulate scores, though with a cut off of March 6, the Canadians will have to be true Snow Birds and get themselves down to Florida ASAP this winter. California offers more limited options for qualifying, with only a couple of CDIs likely to be scheduled before the cut off. If things were to go extra swimmingly for a couple of Canadians between now and next spring, it is possible for Canada to qualify a total of four individuals, which would put them on an even playing field with all the qualified teams who will send four members.
Here’s hoping.
