London 2012 Olympics: Home truths spoil dream, but there’s a silver lining

THE stage was set for a major celebration. With royals present in abundance and a supporting cast of some 20,000 commoners, Greenwich Park was all ready to witness Great Britain’s first gold medal of the Olympics in the three-day event yesterday.

The Princess Royal had even been lined up to present the medals to the competitors, one of whom was her daughter, Zara Phillips. Lying second overnight after the dressage and cross-country stages, the British team needed just one more push – or so it seemed – to claim top place on the podium.

That was the dream at least. But, like Lizzie Armitstead on Sunday, the equestrian team fell just short of realising it, and had to settle for silver.

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Still, make no mistake. In common with the cyclist, this was a silver medal won, not a gold lost. The German team, overnight leaders, proved unassailable yesterday, and in the end the Britons had to fight all the way to hold off New Zealand.

As the wait for a gold goes on across Team GB, there has been a lot of debate about the benefits of home advantage, and whether they might be outweighed by home pressure. The simple answer is probably that it differs from one competitor to the other, but there is little doubt that a collective anxiety has begun to creep into the team.

And that anxiety is not just confined to the human members of it. Mary King, a member of the British quintet which also included Phillips, William Fox-Pitt, Tina Cook and Nicola Wilson, implied after securing the silver medal that even her horse, Imperial Cavalier, had been suffering from nerves.

“He felt quite different from usual, she said. “The tension meant he went with his head high and flat in his body. It probably did not look pretty, but at least we managed to go clear.”

The scale of the occasion was one aspect which caused Imperial Cavalier to be less, well, imperious and cavalier-like than usual, but King explained that something else had given him the jitters. “There is a big bronze lion in the centre of the arena and he got scared and was a bit whizzy. But then he settled and jumped beautifully.”

It was just as well that Imperial Cavalier did settle, because by then the heat was on. With the best three scores from the five team members counting, two Germans had gone clear to ensure they would win gold. The New Zealanders were threatening to snatch silver away, but 51-year-old King’s clear round helped the home team keep their edge.

“I tried to blank everything out and pretend I was in a training session at Addington where we had our training camp,” said King, competing at her sixth Olympics. I said to myself: ‘Come on Mary, it is up to you.’ And it worked.”

New Zealand’s Mark Todd, in his seventh Games, then had seven penalties in his round, which meant Cook, Team GB’s last rider, could afford one penalty and still keep her team second. Riding Miners Frolic, the horse with which she won two bronzes in Beijing, Cook went clear. She picked up one time penalty, and that was it: silver in the bag.

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It was not the dream conclusion that the majority of the crowd had hoped for, but it was a highly 
significant achievement nonetheless and one which 41-year-old Cook believed was a just result. “The team had done so well, it was so close”, she said.

“We could have got silver or nothing and that would have been awful. Gold would have been brilliant, silver is fantastic.” For Cook, the medal was especially pleasing as it was achieved with a horse which had had a life-threatening illness last year.

Phillips, making her Olympic jumping debut with High Kingdom, was one person who could empathise with her team-mate. She had been denied appearances at both of the previous Games, in Athens and Beijing, because of illness to her horse Toytown.

Although officially retired last year, Toytown made an Olympic appearance of sorts just weeks ago, when Phillips took part in the Torch Relay at Cheltenham Racecourse.

Still, while delighted and perhaps also relieved to be competing in the Olympics at last, Phillips was also rueful about her own performance. Riding before Cook and King, she failed to clear the second fence and picked up three time penalties – errors which enhanced Germany’s lead. “I’m just disappointed for the team,” she said following her round. “You want to make your team in the best position, don’t you? We should have been able to do more but Germany were too good for us. It is disappointing, but at the end of the day we have a team silver medal, and we did not go down. The team have been awesome this week, with some massive performances, and it has been a real honour to ride with everyone.”

Looking back on the day, King accepted that the result had been fair. “There was a chance of overtaking the Germans, but they have put in a great performance and deserve it,” she said. “They’ve done better than we have.”

Germany’s Michael Jung went on to win a second gold in the individual competition, thus adding the Olympic title to the world and European titles he already owned.

Sara Algotsson Ostholt, of Sweden, came second, knocking down the very last fence to end her hopes of gold. King was top Briton on fifth, a place ahead of Cook, and Phillips was eighth.