France Make it a One, Two
Halfway through the Men’s Individual Vaulting competition and after the first round of Freestyle Tests, France hold first and second place with the current European and World Champions respectively.
Jacques Ferrari held onto his lead of the Men’s Individual competition and once more entered the arena first with his horse Poivre Vert, this time he posted a score of 8.846 which no other competitor could beat. Hesitant to be optimistic, Jacques is pleased with his two performances but does not wish to jinx his chances by saying too much, “Everything is going good so far, the horse is fit and it was a great feeling out there,” he said, “but we are only half way through the competition so I prefer not to go too far with my comments at the moment as I am trying to stay calm and focused.”
Jacques put in a spectacularly controlled performance with strong arabesque lines and repetitive handstands, dismounts and remounts. One small slip in his stag leap was the only visible error in an otherwise perfectly performed, emotive freestyle. His overall score for the two days of competition is 8.624.
Current World Champion and Jacques fellow French vaulter, Nicolas Andreani posted a score of 8.740 for his Freestyle Test with a strong Einstein theme, his lunger Marina Joosten Dupon even had the famous ”E=MC2” equation written onto the back of her jacket. Nicolas slipped after dismounting Just A Kiss HN with a triple somersault and landed sitting down. “I think the two hands on the ground at the end cost me two tenths of a mark,” he reflected, “but other than that I had a great sensation throughout the test.” Nicolas announced that he will be keeping the same Freestyle Test for his round in the finals on Friday, “This test is the perfect equation in the making so I plan to keep it,” he said.
The third spot after the Freestyle went to German vaulter Erik Oese on board Calvador 5. Erik put in a stunning Freestyle performance to Michael Jackson's Earth Song for a score of 8.589 to leave him with a combined total of 8.348 after two days of competition.
The top 15 vaulters now go through to the technical test tomorrow before contesting their second Freestyle performance in the Finals on Friday.
For a list of the full results from the Men’s individual Freestyle tests and their combined scores, CLICK HERE.