Day one of Vaulting Completed
At the end of the Team, Women’s and Men’s individual Compulsory Tests the scores are tight, proving that the standards have risen once more and that this is going to be the toughest vaulting championships any World Equestrian Games has ever seen.
In the Team Compulsory rounds, the scores are within just 0.1 mark of each other in the top three. The Austrians came out on top with a strong and evenly scoring squad that demonstrated incredible elevation and control throughout. Austria’s solid performance gave them the lead of 0.021 marks over the German team whose horse, Delia 99, broke into trot for the sixth member of the team as he was going into the Stand element of his compulsory test. Switzerland gave their usual slick and powerful performance to slot into third place on a score of 7.757.
In the Womens Individual Compulsory test, current European champion Rikke Laumann from Denmark, once again on board Ghost Alfarvad Z and accompanied by lunger Lasse Kristensen. They topped the table with a score of 8.453 after a magnificently controlled test, showing huge elevation throughout. Closely following Rikke is Grreat Britain’s Joanne Eccles with her old campaigner W H Bentley. Joanne had one slight error on the landing of her Forward Scissors element but otherwise put in an exuberant and flowing performance to sit on a score of 8.35. Sitting just 0.05 marks behind Joanne is Swiss vaulter Simone Jäiser on Luk, Simone split the judges scores at C and D by 0.6 and 0.8 marks respectively, which was enough to push her down into the third spot at the end of day one.
The Men’s Compulsory test was a clash of the Titans, proving the strength of the competition to come. Achieving his best ever score at international level, current European Champion Jacques Ferrari topped the score board with a mark of 8.410. The French vaulter, who was first to go on board Poivre Vert, put in the performance of his life to remain ahead of the rest of the competitors to come displaying incredible strength and flexibility whilst maintaining control throughout. Following behind is a second French vaulter, current World Champion, Nicolas Andreani on Just A Kiss HN with a score of 8.30 - a heavy landing after the Forward Scissors element being the only fault to mar an otherwise impeccable round. Current World number 3, German vaulter Victor Brüsewitz lies in third place after a slightly unbalanced performance throughout lowered his scores.
All vaulters perform again tomorrow with their first round Freestyle tests. For all of the results from today’s compulsory tests CLICK HERE.