Individual, Open

The individual show jumping competition at Rio 2016 produced one of the most unlikely and heart-warming stories of the entire Games. For 58-year-old Nick Skelton it provided the culmination of a more than 40-year roller-coaster career that had not seen an individual championship gold since the 1975 European Junior Championships. He qualified a lowly 33rd out of 36 for the final but, with the scores being reset, became one of only six to go clear over the two final rounds. Going first of the six riders in the timed jump-off, he used his vast experience to cut corners around the course and set an impressively fast and clear round. The next three all had fences down before Peder Fredricson also went clear, albeit in a slower time. The last to go was Eric Lamaze, the 2008 champion, who was faster than Skelton but clipped a rail on the of the closing fences and had to settle for bronze.

Skelton’s long Olympic career should have started at the Moscow Games of 1980 but the British equestrian team boycotted the event and Skelton instead competed in an alternative Olympic event for boycotting countries where he took team silver. He missed Los Angeles after turning professional but finally made his Olympic début in 1988 when the rules of eligibility for professionals were relaxed. From then on he appeared at every Olympics barring 2000, which he missed after being forced to temporarily retire after breaking the C1 vertebra in his neck in two places. Team gold in front of a home crowd in 2012 seemed to be the pinnacle of his career but Rio improved on this