The British Olympic Association (BOA) has today confirmed the four dressage athletes and their horses who will compete for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The selected riders, who were nominated to the BOA for selection to Team GB by the British Equestrian Federation, will compete at Greenwich Park this summer on the 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 9th August.
The athletes selected to Team GB today to contest the team and individual competitions are:
The athlete selected to Team GB to contest the individual competition is:
The dressage team selected today to compete for Team GB this summer contains a wealth of experience; London will be Carl Hester and Richard Davison’s fourth Olympic Games, and Laura Bechtolsheimer’s second after making her Olympic debut Beijing 2008. While London 2012 will be Charlotte Dujardin’s Olympic debut, she has already made a substantial mark on the international dressage world during her short career to date, with her exciting horse Valegro.
Although Great Britain has never won an Olympic dressage medal, a recent improvement in form could buck the trend this summer. The British team won silver at the World Championships in 2010, with Laura Bechtolsheimer and her Olympic mount Mistral Hojris completing a hat-trick of silver medals in the team, individual and freestyle competitions. Laura Bechtolsheimer, Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester were all part of the quartet that won a historic gold medal at the 2011 European Championships, where Hester scooped two individual silver medals and Bechtolsheimer took home a bronze.
All four riders boast records to their names – Dujardin recently broke the world and British record in the Grand Prix Special test at Hagen in May, scoring 88.022%, where Bechtolsheimer also bettered her own British Grand Prix Freestyle record, scoring an impressive 87.60%. Hester now holds the British record in the Grand Prix test of 83.30%.
European medallist Richard Davison is also no stranger to success and has returned to international competition in fighting form in the last couple of years with Artemis, with whom he has scored a number of international wins and placings. The combination finished fifth in the 2012 Reem Acra FEI World Cup.
The addition of the dressage athletes brings the total number of athletes officially selected to compete for Team GB at London 2012 to 281 across 26 sport disciplines: archery, athletics – marathon, badminton, basketball, boxing, canoe slalom, canoe sprint, cycling, diving, equestrian – eventing, equestrian – dressage, fencing, handball, hockey, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, synchronised swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, weighlifting and wrestling.
Team GB Chef de Mission Andy Hunt said:
Team GB Equestrian Team Leader Will Connell said:
Laura Bechtolsheimer said:
Richard Davison said:
Charlotte Dujardin said:
Carl Hester said: