Individual, Open

The individual jumping title is always the most difficult to predict of all Olympic equestrian titles and with three former world champions in entry list it seemed that 2012 would not be an exception to the rule. The marginal favourite was Swedish rider Rolf-Göran Bengtsson, the European champion who also headed the world rankings, with the Swiss pair of Pius Schwizer and Steve Guerdat along with the veteran British rider Nick Skelton also being thought of as potential medallists. Bengtsson’s hopes were to be dashed on the morning of the final when he was forced to withdraw when his horse pulled up lame.

With four rider-horse teams clear over the fences in the two rounds of jumping, the medals were decided by time penalties. Guerdat became the first Swiss rider to win the title since 1924 by producing the only two rounds both clear and inside the time limit. In a jump-off between those with only a single time penalty each Gerco Schröder of the Netherlands capitalized on a mistake by Irishman Cian O’Connor to win the silver. Saudi rider Kamal Bahamdan was fourth despite not having made a jumping mistake – his two time penalties robbed him of a medal.

Schröder had little time to celebrate his Olympic medals as his horse, aptly named London, was seized from him as part of bankruptcy proceedings against the horse’s previous owners.

O’Connor had a strange journey towards his Olympic medal. After seemingly winning the gold medal at the Athens Olympics his title was stripped when his horse tested positive for an anti-psychotic drug. He was initially left out of the Irish team for London but when Denis Lynch’s horse Lantinus was excluded from a competition in Aachen for hypersensitivity in its’ legs, O’Connor was called up in his place and he survived an appeal from Lynch to the Court of Arbitration in Sport to reach London. His chances then appeared gone when he missed qualification for the final round but Bengtsson’s exit gave him a reprieve.

At 65 years of age Ian Millar produced another top 10 finish in his 10th Olympic Games. He became the first person to reach double figures in Olympic appearances, having first appeared in 1972 and only missing 11 appearances because of the 1980 Olympic boycott by Canada.