Jens Fredricson sums up how we felt during Friday night’s team final at the Agria FEI Jumping World Championship in Herning, Denmark, which was so intense that there was hardly time to breath. With medals and Olympic qualification at stake, it was always going to be a hard-fought battle in Herning, but no one would probably have expected it to get as close as it did.
As third out on the Swedish team with Markan Cosmopolit, Fredricson secured the gold for Sweden with nine riders still to go. “Tonight he was relaxed, with a lot of power, so it was an easy ride,” Fredricson said about his round with Markan Cosmopolit. “I was a bit lucky on the last fence, but you always need a bit of luck. And the time was tight; it was not impossible, but you had to think about it the whole way and not do extra strides anywhere. That puts extra pressure, to have a balance with a high speed and all these turns. I think it was a great course.”
Here we look back at the action from Friday night’s competition, that had absolutely all the feels!
All photos © Jenny Abrahamsson for World of Showjumping.
The look on Julien Epaillard's face says it all. He came into last night's team final sitting in silver position with the French team, and holding the lead individually with Caracole de La Roque, but things fell apart for Henk Nooren's men and they dropped down to finish 6th. Like so many others, Epaillard got in trouble at the triple combination, finishing on eight faults.
Scott Brash did definitely not have the round he hoped for, and had two rails down, one of which came in the infamous triple combination. "I am disappointed with our round tonight, Jefferson was too tense. I did not get the best warm-up, it was quite hectic and I feel like it did not help – it shone through to the round. But I am delighted with the lads, they pulled it out the bag; Joe did an amazing round tonight, Harry was absolutely amazing and Ben always delivers. Thankfully, they were on my team tonight," Brash said.
As last in the ring for Sweden, it could have been a real demonstration of power from Peder Fredricson and H&M All In, who also had the opportunity to go into the lead individually. However, even this experienced, multi-medallist couple struggled tonight over Louis Konickx's course to end up on twelve faults and as the Swedish discharge score – also sliding down on the individual standings, all the way from third to 27th.