Kiwis crash in cross-country

Reuters/Fairfax Media

IT'S A STRUGGLE: Mark Todd completed a clear but slow cross-country run while Andrew Nicholson dramatically crashed out on his horse Lord Killinghurst.

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A good ride from Caroline Powell and a successful appeal from Joe Meyer have salvaged things somewhat for the New Zealand eventing team.

The Kiwis finished in sixth overall, which is where they started the day. But they are out of contention for a medal after a failing to come to grips with a difficult cross-country course.

New Zealand has a team total of 210.90 points and is well behind the  leaders, Germany (158.10), Australia (162.00) and Great Britain (173.70).

There will be some controversy in the team camp after Meyer's successful appeal against a jumping penalty moved him into 19th place with 65.10 penalty points and, significantly, pushed Powell out of the top-25.

All riders contest one round of show jumping tomorrow but only the top-25 contest a second bout of jumping to decide the final individual placings. With Meyer's elevation, Powell is out of the running in the individual contest. Germans Hinrich Romeike (50.20) and Ingrid Klimke (50.70) lie first and second with Australian Megan Jones (51.00) third in the individual standings.

Andrew Nicholson, like Mark Todd, is at his sixth Olympics and the best he has to show for it is a silver medal at Barcelona in 1992. But at those games his horse Spinning Rhombus cost New Zealand gold in the team eventing by knocking down a raft of rails in the showjumping. Nicholson took a tumble at the Athens games just days after telling media the course there was "easy".

Today he paid the price for chasing "sheer speed" on a technically difficult course.

"It's all gone a bit pear-shaped," Nicholson lamented after tumbling from Lord Killinghurst and being eliminated from the competition. "Olympics have not been lucky places for me."

Nicholson was on target for one of the fastest times of the day which would have put him, and New Zealand, in contention for a medal. But the double-fence penultimate obstacle proved too difficult as Lord Killinghurst baulked and then, after almost coming to a standstill, tried to climb over the fence but only succeeded in dislodging Nicholson.
 
Todd, first away this morning, rode cautiously in order to make sure the team got off to a good start but in the process he threw away his own individual chance at glory.
 
Todd deemed himself out of the running for an individual medal after being well behind the leaders following the dressage and rather than push hard to move up the individual standings, Todd rode for his team, taking a slightly conservative approach to the elaborately twisting and technical cross-country course, which he completed in 9min 8sec rather than 8min time limit. Every second over the time limit costs 0.4 points.

He incurred 27.2 penalty points and in a hindsight said he could have gone faster on his grey gelding Gandalf but chose to make sure he finished safely in order to best serve the Kiwi team. If he had been even 30s faster which he said was do-able, he would have been just outside the top-10.

Todd said going first in the dressage on Saturday had cost him a few extra penalty points, suggesting the judging got slightly easier after he had come out of the first flight of competition with relatively low scores.

"Going out first in the dressage was a disadvantage and after that my chances of winning an individual medal were slim, so the best I could do was a strong effort for the team," Todd said after dismounting.

- © Fairfax NZ News