Germany Poised to Claim 15th Team Gold Medal in Dressage

The stage has been set for the Olympic dressage team and individual medal rounds at the 2024 Paris Games.

Qualifying heats wrapped on Wednesday and it’s precisely as Great Britain’s Carl Hester predicted the day prior—”I think we all expected Denmark and Germany and Great Britain.”

Six groups of 10 took the arena for the Grand Prix at Palace of Versailles over two days. The 10 best teams advance to the Team Final, Saturday’s Grand Prix Special. The top two athletes from each group and six next best scores (including ties) qualify for Sunday’s Individual Final, the Grand Prix Freestyle.

It will come as no surprise that Germany leads the charge on a team total of 237.546.

The black, red, and gold have won team gold in 14 of 21 Games since 1928. (Dressage was not included in the Rome 1960 Games). In the history of the Games, they’ve only missed the podium three times—1932 Los Angeles, 1948 London, and 1980 Moscow—the last because they boycotted.

What’s more, they’ve only grown stronger. Since 1984, the Germans have won team gold at every games except London 2012, where they were bested by Great Britain. (Germany took team silver).

In Paris, defending individual champion and reigning world no. 1 Jessica von Bredow-Werndl (GER) and TSF Dalera BB brought in the highest score of 82.065. It’s more than 2 points off their Tokyo Games Grand Prix score of 84.379, but puts them on track to repeat their clean sweep of all three rounds of dressage competition.

Countrywoman Isabell Werth, Germany’s most decorated Olympic athlete, fell just shy of the 80 mark on Wendy, earning a 79.363, to finish third individually overall. Fredric Wandres and Bluetooth OLD finished on 76.118 to put them through the individual medal round, as well.

Team Denmark slots into second on 235.730 and Great Britain into third on 231.196—both qualified all three of their riders for the Individual Final.

Denmark’s Catherine Dufor and Freestyle are von Bredow-Werndl’s biggest threat to individual gold as the only other pair to crack the 80 mark (80.792) in Paris.

Returning in reverse order, the team medal will be contested by the top three plus Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, France, Austria, Finland and Australia.

Team USA, defending silver medalists, and Team Canada, will not advance. The Americans were eliminated from team competition following Marcus Orlob and Jane’s disqualification in the Grand Prix when blood was spotted on the horse during the test. Team Canada finished in 11th position overall, to fall short of the top 10 cut off.

Adrienne Lyle and Helix, USA’s top scoring pair, finished 20th overall to miss the top 18 cut off.

As for Great Britain, Hester is predicting a podium finish: “I think now we’re probably looking at a bronze, if it goes well.”