German Favourites Lead the Team Freestyle
The action started early at 9:30 local time this morning at the Zenith stadium, situated just inside the World Equestrian Games village for the first day of Vaulting Freestyle. The atmosphere was electric, the lights were set and the crowd were buzzing ready for the start. All Freestyle scores for teams and individuals are combined with the compulsory scores and an average taken to create the leader board for qualification into the next respective rounds.
After two days of competition, the German team are leading by 0.47 marks ahead of the Swiss, as the Austrians, who were overnight leaders, now drop down into third on a combined score of 7.907. Despite the team horse, Delia 99, having a nervy entrance, the team put in an incredibly strong performance starting with two of the team performing roll up somersault mounts on either side of the horse simultaneously to commence some beautifully balanced Pas des Deux work. The flyer displayed incredible balance when lifted by the base with a one handed full extension into a Bielman Arabesque, however the assisted landing was dropped and she fell quite heavily off the inside of the horse. This, the only error to spoil an otherwise immaculately controlled test, would have been penalised, and yet the Freestyle achieved an incredible mark of 8.928.
The all female Swiss team were all noticeably of similar size apart from the flyer and showed incredible control whilst assisting and lifting one another with ease throughout their slick Freestyle. The synchronicity of the team was second to none and the choreography combined some brilliantly executed R elements including a fully extended and perfectly straight handstand by the flyer being held above the base at full arm extension with incredible balance.
The Austrians had extremely dynamic music to accompany their Roman warrior theme which the choreography was perfectly on point with. Unfortunately there were a number of times the vaulters showed imbalance and there were some missed holds but the horse, Alessio I Amabile, did not help this by loosing rhythm and breaking into trot twice during the test.
The top twelve teams now go forward to Friday’s final competition. For the full results of today’s team Freestyle results and the combined scores over the two days of competition so far, CLICK HERE.