Tokyo Olympics: Team GB take the bronze medal in the dressage team final with Germany clinching gold

They danced and pranced and after the prancing and dancing was done we had the familiar scene of Charlotte Dujardin wearing an Olympic medal. An historic one, actually. But perhaps it was a shade less shiny than expected.

Of the five she now has, this latest disc, acquired in the team dressage alongside Carl Hester and Lottie Fry, was the first bronze.

Nothing wrong with bronze, of course – there are 11,326 athletes at these Games and most would walk blindfolded and barefoot through the stables to get a bronze. A bronze that ties her with Katherine Grainger as Britain’s most decorated female Olympian, no less. Incredible performer.

But equally she has tended to trade in higher currencies and so there was a slight whiff of surprise at the Equestrian Park in Tokyo. 

Gold? That was always a long shot, and probably too long. Germany won that, because they always do, taking every Olympic team dressage title since 1984 with the exception of 2012, when Dujardin and Hester made up two-thirds of the British team that got in the way.

But silver was in Britain’s hands here, and specifically it was in Dujardin’s going into the third of three rounds. Hester and Fry had been good and solid respectively and had held off the US team, but by the time Dujardin was up after almost five hours of watching, the sand was shifting beneath her feet.

The third American rider, Sabine Schut-Kery, had delivered a superb routine of 2684.5 points, and that left Dujardin needing 2641 to take back silver. No easy task there, and less so on a 10-year-old horse, Gio, that was in its first major competition. Valegro might have gobbled that up like sugar cubes, but novices take time.

And so it didn’t happen. Dujardin started well and finished strongly, but with a couple of missteps in the one-time changes, she lost a little too much ground, taking 2617 points, 24 shy of the US. 

In the circumstances of adapting to a new, young horse, she said: ‘I went in there to do the best I could.

‘I was thrilled with him (Gio). We have done few shows and he is only 10 years old. The last few days with him, I can’t ask more than that. It looks like a bronze medal but to me it feels like a gold.’

She’ll win more, such is her talent, but you have to question if her and Gio can make it happen in the individual event on Wednesday, when the 36-year-old attempts to become the first British woman to take golds in three successive Games. 

In the matter at hand, it is no surprise that Germany won, and it was written in the sand from the first round, after which their team of Dorothee Schneider, Isabell Werth and Jessica von Bredow-Werndl held a 75-point lead. Hester had done a solid job of laying a platform for Britain by scoring 2577.5 points on his inexperienced gelding, En Vogue, before Fry entered the stage with growing rear-view pressure from the US.

Fry’s stallion Everdale was tetchy and her 2528.5points was something of a struggle – Everdale broke into a canter in error early on, costing points, but she finished well. The 25-year-old’s score was only the fifth highest of the eight riders in the rotation.

‘It was a shame we had one mistake near the beginning but I really picked him up after that,’ said Fry. ‘I thought, “We can’t afford to lose any more”, and he kind of listened to that and really gave everything from that point.’

Following that moderate score, Germany were effectively out of reach and there was an active risk from the US below. Dujardin and Gio took to the stage and put in a good enough run for bronze but not silver, with Britain ending on 7,723, behind the US on 7,747. Germany were a mile ahead on 8,178.