I do think the term ‘post-mortem’ is especially appropriate, given all the things that have fallen short at the Pan Am Games equestrian so far. Before I make a few comments on the judging (because I know you dressage score fetishists have been looking for it), I have a few final things to say about the main issues of the past week.
Firstly, I want to take a moment to comment on the venue itself, which was top notch. The footing, identical in all three dressage warm up rings and main stadium, is above reproach. I was not allowed to enter the stabling (standard for any international event), but from the outside the roomy stalls inside what are essentially indoor arena looked spacious and well ventilated. I heard not one negative comment regarding the venue from any of the many riders I’ve chatted with this week.
I had never been to the Caledon Equestrian Park before now, but the only thing I didn’t like about the place was that it was quite hard to find. I suppose the TO2015 people didn’t want people to find the venue, only the spectator parking. Fine, but I was still a bit taken aback at how concealed this large equestrian event facility is within the folds of such a small town. The metal grandstand seating perhaps needed a bit of a rethink before it was chosen over plastic or other non-metal materials. The hot weather we saw is hardly exceptional for July in Southwestern Ontario. As for shade, or its lack thereof, I don’t really think it’s reasonable to have expected covered tribunes for spectators when the set up is temporary. As a member of the media, I was quite thrilled with the media tribune, at the end of the notorious VIP/Gold area (which, by the way, I was free to circulate through from end to end yesterday, with no evidence of a barrier between the two), and with a roof over our heads. At the London Olympics not only did we not have any cover from the frequent rain squalls (or shade from the sun when it did grace us on occasion – it’s almost impossible to see a computer screen in full sunlight), we were also treated to stairmaster hikes to the nosebleed section allocated to press.
No, one cannot fault the venue for falling short in terms of providing conditions for top sport. I congratulate Craig Collins, as well as Dressage managers John Taylor and Barb Mitchell, along with their many support staff, for running a tight ship. The competition schedule ran like a Swiss train, results were promptly announced, displayed on the jumbo screen, and updated to the TO2015 website. Two thumbs unequivocally up.
As for the maze-like fencing that made it physically impossible for media to even get to where the hamburgers were being flipped, and the decision to locate them a long, sweaty hike from the stands, that would be TO2015’s bad. If you are planning to attend any of the Eventing dressage or jumping, or the Show Jumping (which will most definitely get at least some of the promised 18 hours CBC claims to have allocated for equestrian coverage), you might be interested in reading this article published on Monday in the Caledon Enterprise. There are some excellent tips, as well as affirmation that I’m not just pulling my criticisms out of the place where the sun don’t shine.
I’ve now had it confirmed by multiple sources that you should be directing your anger at the 100% lack of coverage on TV or on line to the CBC. Ironically, the best explanation for why no one in the Americas could watch even one minute of the dressage came not from within Canada, but from USEF. Here is a link to the excellent communiqué they put out a couple of days ago.
And speaking of communications, I’d like to share with you some of the stellar work done by our very own Canadian Olympic Committee, whose media department has been bombarding the Canadian media with announcements ever since the tidal wave of Canadian medals got under way. I have to wonder if they are reporting results as inaccurately in other sports as they are for equestrian. Here is what they told me had happened at the Dressage on Sunday, following the team medals:
Team Dressage – Belinda Trussell, Brittany Fraser, Chris von Martels, Megan Lane – Final – SILVER
Individual Dressage – Belinda Trussell – Intermediate/Grand Prix Special – 5th
Dear COC: Congratulations on announcing our team silver medal. Now for the bad news. Your individual results report is incorrect and incomplete. Belinda Trussell did finish fifth in the combined Int/GPS competition, but you neglected to include the more meaningful overall individual position of sixth after the two team rounds. Much more importantly, you completely failed the other Canadian athletes by not mentioning them at all. Following the team final and individual qualifications, Brittany Fraser was in third place, and Chris von Martels was fourth. Megan Lane was in eighth position. How you managed to identify only the third best Canadian, and to use the less relevant ranking information, is a mystery to me.
Dear COC Part 2: Congratulations on announcing Chris von Martels’ individual bronze medal. Now for the bad news. Even though Belinda Trussell and Brittany Fraser both finished the freestyle with the same score of 76.8%, Belinda was ranked fourth and Brittany fifth, after the tie was broken in favour of the athlete with higher artistic marks. Admittedly, the online results on the TO2015 show a tie, but the official, printed results clearly indicate that the tie has been broken.
I have one question for the COC: do you check with ANYONE in equestrian sport before posting results? The press attaché perhaps? Athletes themselves? Chef d’equipe? Apparently not. I’d like to suggest what I would have thought is bleedingly obvious: that the COC not depend exclusively on the online results or its internal staff in conveying results. I’m sure the individuals I mention above wouldn’t mind fact checking your results before you send them out across the country riddled with easily corrected errors.
So finally, a few parting remarks on the actual sport over these past few days.
Team medals: It was a foregone conclusion that the US would win gold and Canada silver. I think the most interesting thing to remark on there is that the 1.5% bonus for GP scores ultimately had no impact on the outcome – not for gold, silver or bronze. Brazil came out ahead of Mexico by ever-so-slender a margin. Mexico had lost one team member, Mariana Quintana, whose horse Guapo didn’t pass on re-inspection before the competition. That might have been a small handicap for Mexico, but it’s entirely possible that even with the fourth member competing, Brazil, which had four very consistent team members (three of whom placed sixth, seventh and ninth in the freestyle – ahead of any of the Mexicans), would still have won bronze. My eyebrows were never more than slightly raised in the two team tests.
Freestyle medals: Here is where I almost (but not quite) fear to tread. During the freestyles, I had a colleague seated beside me who knows a lot about show jumping, but little about dressage. During both of the Grand Prix freestyle rides by the Americans, she asked me at several points what was going on, as in what was wrong. At the risk of upsetting my American readers, I found that both Steffen’s and Laura’s performances fell short of what they have produced in the past. “Managed to pull it off” would come to mind more than “nailed it”, if you get my drift. There weren’t any major mistakes along the lines of Legolas’ GPS, but neither ride showed the harmony or gave an impression of simply flowing from one beautiful execution to the next. Who did that? Chris and Belinda, and even Brittany, who had just one mistake in her three tempis. Chris and Zilverstar did lack difficulty in their I-1 floor plan, but then so did Anky’s and Edward’s freestyles when they won gold medals at bigger events than the Pan Am Games. Okay, so are the judges waking up to the importance of accurately assessing difficulty? I think so. Now that I look at the marks, Chris did have the highest technical score of the three, at 78.4%, and the lowest artistic, at 80.6%. Steffen and Laura both have plenty of difficulty in their choreography. But I still have a vague feeling of unquiet about the medals, especially when I also consider Belinda’s ride on Anton, which was filled with difficulty brilliantly executed. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this feeling after an individual medal final, though I know that my experience of watching the whole performance from a more aesthetic perspective is not a fair place from which to criticize judges.
The judging of the freestyles: As I’ve already pointed out, it would seem to be the case that the reason Chris missed out on a gold medal was the lack of difficulty in his program. Judge Maribel Alonso did comment to me after the press conference that she wished there had been a bit more difficulty in Chris’ floor plan. So, what else? Unfortunately, the online results don’t display the breakdown of marks between technical and artistic, but my printed results do. Here is a photo of the top ten riders’ results so that you have an idea what I’m going on about.
It’s interesting to see that the artistic ‘grouch’ of the judges was Lilo, a judge I’ve always found to be more of a glass-half-full sort of judge. She didn’t actually give anyone a lower artistic than technical score, but she did give Laura Graves the same technical and artistic, which is not common in the over 75% crowd. Who DID give a lower artistic than technical mark was Libby McMullen, ground jury president and judge at C for the freestyles. She gave Chris 78.25% on technical, and only 78% artistic. She also gave Brittany the same mark, 76%, for both technical and artistic. The artistic Santa Claus of the day was Stephen Clarke, who consistently gave much higher artistic marks in comparison to technical than most other judges. Clearly he and Libby were making their artistic assessments of Brittany’s ride through different lenses, since he gave her 8.25% higher artistic marks than technical, which was the biggest artistic reward of the day.
None of my comments here are criticisms, just observations. The days seem to be behind us when I could spend an entire blog going on about dubious judging results. To my mind, the judging in Toronto was overall fair and balanced. There will always be instances of ‘fly in the eye’ and the unavoidable human weaknesses that creep into judging subjective sports like dressage, such as familiarity bias. Yes, I still feel a bit unsettled about yesterday’s gold and silver medal placements, but perhaps I’m just guilty of that other bias: nationalistic bias.
I will be off for the next couple of days until Saturday’s cross country, which I am looking forward to attending – provided my credentials are still valid by then. Don’t forget to check my FB page if you want to see the only visual evidence of the Canadians’ performances this week.
I’ve also posted a special message on FB for any of the people who have persisted in trying to make me feel like a sh*#t heel for doing on this blog what I’ve always done: tell it like I see it – good, bad or ugly.
