Great Britain’s Nick Skelton wins individual Olympic show jumping gold in Rio
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Published 19/08/2016 at 21:17 GMT
Great Britain’s Nick Skelton became Britain's second-oldest Olympic gold medallist after winning the individual Olympic show jumping title at the Deodoro Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Great Britain’s Nick Skelton wins individual Olympic show jumping gold in Rio
Image credit: Eurosport
Riding Big Star, the 58-year-old claimed individual gold in his seventh Games after a thrilling six-way jump-off decider.
Sweden’s Peder Fredricson won silver and Canada’s Eric Lamaze claimed the bronze.
Skelton also becomes Britain’s oldest Olympic gold medallist in any sport, eclipsing shooter Joshua Millner – also known as Jerry, who won gold in 1908.
It is also Great Britain’s first individual show jumping medal since Anne Moore claimed a silver medal in 1972 and adds to Skelton’s gold in the team event at London 2012.
Skelton went clear in both opening individual rounds and as the first to go in the six-horse jump-off produced another clear round with Big Star in a time of 42.82 seconds.
Ironically Skelton has struggled with the 13-year-old stallion’s fitness since the Great Britain team won gold at the 2012 Olympic Games, but they showed no signs of any such problems and left no room for error for those combinations to come.
There was surprise when the next combination in, reigning Olympic Champion, Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat and Nino des Buissonnets, had the rail down on the first fence in an otherwise clear round, but it left them on four faults and a time of 43.08 seconds.
Qatar’s Sheikh Ali Al Thani was next up but had two fences down, before USA’s Kent Farrington suffered the same fate as Guerdat when Voyeur touched the top rail on the first fence and then had a pole down on the last.
Fredricson and All In then went clear again slotting in 0.53 seconds behind Skelton to occupy the silver medal position.
Last to go was Canada’s Eric Lamaze on Fine Lady 5 but after clipping the 1.60 metre fence the two crossed the finish line with four faults and the time of 42.09 seconds.
That was good enough for bronze for the pairing, and for Skelton and Big Star to celebrate the first ever individual show jumping gold for Great Britain.
The result means Great Britain’s equestrian team finished their Rio 2016 Olympic Games campaign with two gold medals – for Skelton and dressage star Charlotte Dujardin – plus a silver medal for the dressage team.
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