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Canadian Show Jumping Medal Hopes Escalate

August 15, 2008

Hong Kong, China --- Officially there was no one winner in tonight's first show jumping qualifier, but Canada came up a big winner with strong qualifying positions for both team and individual medal contests.

Canada emerged as the equal second-best nation going forward into Sunday and Monday's team competition. The United States leads and Canada, Switzerland and Brazil are tied, just one time-fault behind.

The top three scores from Canada's four representatives tonight determine the team's positioning in the first round of the team competition. The order of jumping for the nations will be worst-to-best, giving Canada a late position, which is considered an advantage. Tonight's scores are not carried forward for team medal purposes.

Individual scores from tonight's competition are, however, added to individual scores in the team competition to determine which individuals advance to the individual medal final. In that contest, Canada's Eric Lamaze, on Hickstead, and team-mate Mac Cone on Ole, are part of a 13-way tie for first place with faultless scores. Jill Henselwood on Special Ed is tied in 14th place out the 77-entry field. Henselwood had just one time-fault and no jumps knocked down. Ian Millar and In Style had just one knockdown, to tie for 30th spot.

"Our team medal hopes are good. We've got a strong team.", Henselwood, of Oxford Mills, Ontario, said, "I'm really excited". She is aware, however that her one time penalty tonight illustrates just how costly time penalties can be. "We can learn from that in this qualifier", Henselwood said "and be aware that these course designers are going to be building courses where time will be a factor and could be the decider."

Lamaze came into these Games as an individual medal favourite and lived up to expectations tonight. Some other early predictions proved surprisingly off the mark, as the evening unfolded. The favoured Germans garnered a team total of 22 faults. Their strongest hope, Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, ended in a tie for 46th place. She is the #1-ranked rider in the world and was hailed as one of Lamaze's strongest rivals for individual honours.

The team competition is contested over two days, on Sunday and Monday. Only the top eight teams advance to Monday and scores are cumulative over those two rounds for team medals.

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