With Rio 2016 kicking off next weekend, I thought I would make a few predictions on how I think the Medals will go in the Equestrian events (because we all like to sound like we know what we are talking about!)
Eventing
My first prediction is probably quite obvious to anyone who follows the sport. But I think Michael Jung will be getting an Individual medal in Eventing and I would like to think that it will be Gold! He has just won the Rolex Grand Slam and they won Gold at London 2012. So I think it would be fantastic if they did it again!
For the Team medals, I predict that it will be between Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain, but not necessarily in that order. Germany has Michael Jung, Great Britain has the only other Rolex Grand Slam winner Pippa Funnell and William Fox-Pitt and New Zealand has the Legendary Mark Todd. I think these teams potentially have the edge over the other nations and I would love to see the 3 of them in the Medals.
Dressage
I have another couple of obvious predictions for dressage. The first is Individual Gold for Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro. They won Gold at London 2012 and have only seemed to get better since! I think virtually the whole Equine world is expecting this pair to win Gold!
Combine Charlotte with Carl Hester and I would be surprised if team GB didn’t make it into the team medals for dressage. But I think they will probably have some stiff competition from Germany who currently have the best Olympic Dressage record. So I expect to see both these nations in the team medals.
Show Jumping
Show Jumping I’m struggling to make any predictions for. I certainly couldn’t pick out individual medallists, but I think team medals will be between; Germany, Great Britain, USA, The Netherlands and Sweden. Great Britain has a lot of experience on their team and the Europeans breed fantastic horses for this sport… so it really is hard to choose. But that is my stab in the dark prediction!
Please let me know if you agree with my predictions and share your own! Let’s see how many we can get right!
Last Updated on 22/12/2021
