Olympic News: First Day of Dressage Grand Prix Sees Two Team USA Members in Top Ten
8/20/2004 By: By Brian Sosby
Let the dressage tests begin! Hungry fans of the sport descended on a steamy early morning Markopoulo Equestrian Center, anxious to see their favorites take to the challenge of battling it out for the Gold, Silver and Bronze Team and Individual medals. There are 52 horses from 18 countries competing in the two-day Grand Prix Team test. Ten countries will be competing in the Team medal. The German contingent appears as strong competition to U.S. hopes for Gold, having only lost it one time since the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games to the riders from Russia (at the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics). German rider Ulla Salzgeber and Dutch team member Anky van Grunsven are sure to prove formidable competition at these Games. They both compete on Saturday.
Posting scores of 68.792% (Lisa Wilcox and Relevant) and 69.500% (Guenter Seidel and Aragon), Team USA has some catching up to do if they are to find themselves on the high-end of the Team medal’s podium Saturday afternoon, following the wrap-up of the two-day Team Grand Prix. Debbie McDonald and six-time Olympian Robert Dover are set to enter the dressage ring and post their scores tomorrow (Steffen Peters is serving as the American alternate rider).
First up for Team USA, and first into the dressage ring for the day was Lisa Wilcox (who lives and trains in Germany). She had several advantages coming into the Games, in addition to being the first in the ring on Friday. She made mention of the fact that her horse was fresh and relaxed. Additionally, a quieter stadium eliminated excess noise from what seemed to be a very vocal and excited crowd for the 26 riders competing today.
Her score for the Grand Prix test was a personally disappointing 68.792. She said it was a potential hazard of going early, “That’s the risk of being the first horse.” “[The lower than hoped for score] puts a lot of pressure on my teammates, and it kind of bums me out. I know they really need to be in the 70s now,” she said, noting that only three of the team riders will come into the Special later on Sunday. Judging from her morning’s score, her place in the Special is, unfortunately, not a certainty.
The pair has only competed at one competition since February. It was after the indoor season that a tendon sheath problem with Relevant dampened everything for the pair. Wilcox decided to pass on the outdoors, instead choosing not to risk it and saving any chance of further injury to her Oldenburg stallion. A string of vets evaluated her horse before competition, all soothing her nerves and all giving her a “green light.”
The pair was allowed to skip shows such as Hagen and Aachen before making the trip to Athens this year. Wilcox said that she really needed the conditioning and that as long as she was “decent” at Lingen she would be allowed to use that score as her qualifier. The pair won the Grand Prix there with a score of 72.54% (her U.S. teammate, Guenter Seidel, who rode later in the morning at Markopoulo posted a score of 71.375% at Lingen).
However, during her Olympic debut during this morning’s test, there were a few bobbles and something of a tight second pirouette. However, her horse kept jumping through and avoided any parallel stepping. Two self-described “less-than-perfect” tempis at the end of her performance were caused by a “noisy seat” said the rider, who gave horse a little too much assistance, which confused him. She chalked it up as a rider mistake, honorably taking the credit.
Her pride in her horse was evident and she echoed this several times. “He gave me all he had to give today,” she said.
Speaking for a moment about her personal feelings of being included on the U.S. team and making her first appearance on the Olympic stage, Wilcox smiled widely and said, “Gosh, it means an awful lot for me to be here, and I’m j