After some suitably breathtaking showjumping at the Château de Versailles the Irish team fell short of winning only its second ever medal in Olympic equestrian. The trio of Shane Sweetnam, Daniel Coyle and Cian O’Connor ended up seventh despite putting themselves right in the mix going into the last round.
At that point only one fence divided the top four teams, Ireland sitting in fourth on a score of five faults behind Great Britain (one), France (three) and the USA (four), putting all the pressure on O’Connor in the final round in their quest to make it on to the podium for the first time in the team event.
The 44-year-old from Co Meath, who won individual bronze in 2012, and this time riding Maurice, started well to give Ireland that medal shot. But a fence down on a trio of jumps midway through his run, and another late on, along with a time penalty dropped Ireland back down to fifth at that stage.
Great Britain finished off on another clear round to take gold with only one time penalty, ahead of the USA in silver, with France, watched by French president Emmanuel Macron, pipping the Netherlands for bronze. Ireland ended up seventh, their score of 14 slipping behind Germany (eight) and Sweden (12).
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The Irish result does match their previous best of seventh in the team showjumping competition, which came back in 1956, but it was no secret that Michael Blake’s team had come to Paris will real medal ambitions, winning the five-star Nations Cup in Germany last month.
With the allowed time of just 79 seconds catching out many of the riders and horses, Ireland were also a little unlucky.
Sweetnam was up first on James Kann Cruz, and the world number nine produced a brilliant round until he hit the very last fence, giving it just the tiniest of rubs but over and down it went.
He was also just outside the allowed time of 79 seconds, his time of 79.83, with one time penalty and one fault, meaning Ireland were still in sixth. Great Britain took an early lead after the first round, ahead of France, Germany, Sweden and the USA.
Coyle was up in the second round, with the 14-year-old mare Legacy, the world number 11 having produced Ireland’s only clear round in qualification on Friday.
Coyle briefly lost his stirrup, but quickly recovered and kept his nerve to produce another superb clear run just as he’d done on Thursday. It briefly moved Ireland up to second, behind France, who also produced their clear round immediately before.
The second Britain rider was Harry Charles on Romeo 88, son of Irish-born rider Peter, and he narrowly avoided missing a jump midway through to produce another clear round. That put them in the firm gold medal position on a score on only one fault, with only the final round still to come.
After a 20-minute break, the final third-round riders were out, again riding in reverse order, and O’Connor knew he’d likely need a clear round to make the podium.
Only it wasn’t to be. The long wait for that Olympic team medal continues.
