The Australian eventing team at Tokyo 2020.

© HippoFoto - Dirk Caremans

Aussie eventers' silver streak

By EQ Life

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will be one to remember for many reasons, not least the Australian eventing team’s brilliant silver medal. Andrew Hoy and Vassily de Lassos, Shane Rose and Virgil, and Kevin McNab and Scuderia 1918 Don Quidam produced an outstanding performance that left equestrian fans around the country cheering.

Tokyo 2020 has had a five-year build-up, and no one quite believed it would go ahead until it did — and it’s been an Olympics unlike any of us have seen before. After four days of thrilling action in the eventing, the team gold medal was won by Great Britain for the first time in nearly 50 years, with 89.30 penalties. The Australian team — comprised of Andrew Hoy and Vassily de Lassos, Shane Rose and Virgil, and Kevin McNab and Scuderia 1918 Don Quidam — took home the silver on a score of 100.20, while the defending champions France claimed the bronze on 101.50.

It’s been five years since Australia claimed team bronze in Rio and 13 years since they claimed silver in Beijing. At the 2018 World Equestrian Games (WEG), we just missed a medal in sixth place. In Tokyo, it was a triumphant return to form and a hopeful sign of things to come ahead of the 2022 World Championships in Denmark and the 2024 Olympics in Paris...

Read the full article in the August issue of Equestrian Life magazine here.