Andrew Hoy and Vassily de Lassos are part of the Australian eventing team.

© Stefan Lafrentz

Heath Ryan previews the eventing at Tokyo 2020

By Heath Ryan

The eventers are all through the first horse inspection at Tokyo 2020, with the exception of Poland's Banderas ridden by Pawel Spisak, and competition is all set to begin on Friday morning (30 July).

There are 15 nations who have full teams of 3 competitors competing and there are another 18 individual riders representing countries who could not field a full team of three. That means all up we have 63 riders about to appear in competition in the Eventing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

I've been crunching numbers and come up with a pre-event prediction of where the teams might finish. Anticipating the team scores is indeed very difficult for several reasons.

Here's why:

1.    The dressage test is the 5* version, which has not been done by many of the competitors competing at the Tokyo Olympics. This means that more than half of the field in terms of horses and riders together at Tokyo will be attempting this difficult dressage test for the first time.

DOWNLOAD/VIEW THE OLYMPIC DRESSAGE TEST HERE

2.    The cross-country at Tokyo is 4420m, which has to be ridden at 570 metres per minute. The course has 45 jumping efforts or cross-country fences and to complete this course without penalties the rider must take no longer than 7 minutes and 45 seconds from the start gates to the finish flags. Normally a championship cross-country course like Tokyo will have 45 jumping efforts, but will be longer in length by up to 2000 metres and so the horses will normally be allowed some 11 minutes and 30 seconds approximately to jump the same number of fences. Reducing the length is done at Tokyo in anticipation of hot conditions. However, the number of jumping efforts have not been reduced. This means that there are not going to be straight galloping sections between the fences where a rider can make up the time and still be steadier and more careful at each cross-country fence. So we are anticipating that riders trying to complete the cross-country with no time penalties are going to be forced to ride the cross-country fences at a higher speed than is normally required. The faster a rider and horse negotiate a cross-country fence the higher the level of expertise needed by both horse and rider for a safe and successful outcome. That is the maths of the Tokyo cross-country course. Not always does anticipated theory or maths perfectly dove tail into reality.

We are guessing here, however it is possible that although Tokyo is a shortened cross-country course it may be that achieving time is almost impossible. This will completely change the expected results that we are anticipating as a result of previous competition results leading up to Tokyo. The cross-country may indeed determine which country wins the team gold medal and which riders go forward to contest the individual gold medals. In recent times the top riders have become so proficient that they are able to complete the cross-country in terms of clear jumping penalties and clear time penalties on a fairly regular basis. So the results in a modern day three-day event is very influenced by the dressage results. Maybe not here at Tokyo. Very exciting.

3.    Many of the riders recognised as eventing legends here at Tokyo are partnering horses who are reasonably inexperienced. This is unusual and probably a very significant consideration. The two teams who we are tipping to be gold and silver team medallists, Great Britain followed by Germany, are the two teams who do have very seasoned horses and riders who have been together as partners for many many years.
 
Heath’s predictions in terms of team placings, based on the combined total of the team members’ personal bests, are:

1.    Great Britain to win team gold. If all three riders produce scores equal to their personal best they will finish with a team score of 68.5 penalties after the showjumping.
2.    Germany, we anticipate winning team silver medal with a team score of 76.4 penalties as long as all three riders perform scores equal to their personal best.
3.    USA to win the team bronze medal. Interestingly it has been 17 years (2004, Athens, bronze) years since the USA has figured in team medals. This team is ironically driven by two ex-Australians in Boyd Martin and Phillip Dutton. Certainly the least experienced rider is the American rider Doug Payne who is probably the weak link if they have a weak link. With everything going well we expect the US to get 82.6 penalties. So just 14 penalties off the team gold medal. Very close.
4.    New Zealand has the husband and wife super stars in Tim and Jonelle Price. New Zealand does not have  the depth it once had but we are expecting a score around 87.8 penalties.
5.    Sweden, this has taken both Matt and I by surprise. Sweden has the very experienced rider Ludwig Svennerstal leading this team. We expect Sweden to finish with 89.2 penalties.
6.    Australia, gosh Matt and I are hoping this prediction to be very inaccurate in that Australia indeed wins the team gold medal. Our maths suggests that Australia will finish on a score of 90.7 penalties. So this is just a little over 20 penalties away from the team gold medal score.
7.    France. The French were the gold medal team winners at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The French were not ranked as medal winners at Rio so goodness knows where this team will finish up here at Tokyo. Right now we are predicting a final team score of 91.1 penalties.
8.    Japan. These riders are relatively inexperienced however all three of them have had the odd result in the last couple of years which have been super exciting. There are people out there tipping for a big Japanese result. Mathematically we are suggesting Japan will finish on a team score of 97.6 penalties.
9.    Ireland is a country where everybody rides and some of the best event horses in the world are bred and then sold on to other nations. The Irish can really ride. We expect them to finish with a team score 97.8 penalties.
10.    Italy could achieve 101.4 penalties.
11.    Switzerland is expected to finish on a score of 114.5 penalties providing all goes well.
12.    Poland does turn up the Olympics year in year out. We expect the Polish team to finish on a score of 123.4 penalties allowing for all going well.
13.   China again these riders are short of international experience and we expect them to finish on 141.2 penalties, again allowing for all going well.
14.    Thailand. This is a big move for this nation and this is the first time that Thailand has fielded an Olympic eventing team. There have been individual Thai riders in previous Olympics. We expect the Thai team to finish on a score of 144.3 penalties providing all goes well.
15.    Brazil could achieve 169.2 penalties.

 
Individual medals:

1.    From Germany we think the individual gold medallist will be Michael Jung riding Chipmunk. (EquiRatings have Michael Jung as a 25% chance to win, 47% chance to make top 3)
2.    From Great Britain Laura Collett on London 52 to win the individual silver medal. (EquiRatings have Laura Collett as 31% chance to make the top 3)
3.    Also from Great Britain Tom McEwen riding Toldeo de Kerser  to win the individual bronze medal. (EquiRatings have Tom McEwen as 34% chance to make the top 3)

There are any number of potential individual gold medalists. This is an impossible prediction and there are going to be lots of very deserving performances who are going to miss out on a medal by less than one penalty. There are also a couple of riders from unexpected nations who could from out of the blue make an appearance in the final individual medal count down. For example, from the host nation, Kazuma Tomoto riding Vinci de La Vigne. One thing we can predict is these medals will go right down to the wire.

You can join Heath and Matt Ryan each night at 5.30pm AEST during the Eventing at Tokyo as they discuss all the action in their half-hour chat show. View the schedule here.

 

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