September 22, 2026 
It’s Brazil against France, the hometown team.
The first round of the Longines League of Nations went down flawlessly for Team Brazil. Their first three riders went clear, eliminating the need for their anchor rider, Stephan de Freitas Barcha, to ride the course. France, not quite so perfect, ended the first round with a score of four, earned when Nina Mallevaey hit the triple bar and sent a pole ricketing to the ground.
It’s the fourth leg of the LLN series, taking place in beautiful St. Tropez, France. In a mere two weeks, Barcelona will hold the Final, the highest-ranked eight countries in the standings to battle it out.
But before we head to Spain, we have this final qualifying leg to contest, everyone vying for a spot in the Final. Round 1 and we start with four riders from ten teams: Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, USA, Brazil, Switzerland, France, Ireland, Great Britain, and Germany.
The first round brings the aforementioned perfection from Team Brazil, while Netherlands and Switzerland are eliminated with 16 and 20 faults respectively.
Team France and Team USA are in second and third with 4-fault scores.
Round 2 brings us teams fighting for a win or a rise in the standings and teams turning first-round clears into second-round woodchopping. That’s how it goes in the Longines League of Nations, where the second round embraces a three-rider, all-scores-count Olympic format.
Team Belgium, sixth place going into Round 2 with a score of 8, fights back with three perfect rounds from riders Niels Bruynseels, Jérôme Guery, and Abdel Saïd and end their day with a bronze-medal podium finish. Germany, on the woodchipper side, defies their recent world dominating team performances with a 28-point finish, hovering just over the eliminated teams at the bottom of the scoreboard. Team USA follows the German model, sinking towards the bottom with a final score of 20.
Round 2 brings the showdown between Brazil and France, the crowd tense with hope that their team will succeed in besting a team that on this day seems unbeatable.
The first crack in the Brazilian armor comes with their first rider, Stephan de Freitas Barcha on Chevaux Primavera Imperio Egipcio, who sat out the first round. Always a risk—do you tackle the second round with a fresh horse, taking the chance on a mistake on an unfamiliar course?
The mistake comes where so many did—the tricky triple combination, oxer-vertical-oxer, a combination where, throughout the day, riders have taken out the A element, the B element, the C element, and sometimes all three at once.
Barcha settles for the B element and clocks a score of 4, bringing Brazil even with France.
Meanwhile, France takes on the Belgian model. Mallevaey fixes her “silly fence” problem from Round 1 and goes clear on Destine to Be. Antoine Ermann and Floyd des Pres follow suit.
Second rider for Brazil, João Victor Castro Aguiar Gomes De Lima, shows up and fights for a clear with Cashpaid J&F, which brings us to our anchor riders, entering the ring with their teams tied at four.
Two more clears and we’re in a jump off. Anything else, and the other will win it.
First to go is France with Simon Delestre and Gatsby du Tillard. Everything is going well until the triple—but oh! Despite a close call, they clear it and cross the finish adding nothing to France’s score.
So all the pressure is on the last-to-go Brazilian rider, Marlon Modolo Zanotelli and Charly Heart, who scored an easy clear in Round 1.
The crowd is quiet, the crowd is tense. Above, in the sky, a plane screams as it flies by, the sound moving through the air as if it were the loudest sound imaginable in this atmosphere of hushed anticipation.
The round is clear, the round is good until—the second to last! Down it comes! Brazil lands on 8 faults, tying Belgium, only a bit faster to go into second and—France has won!
Jubilation fills the stadium and the plane can scream all it wants, because who can hear it now? No one over the cheers of the hometown crowd.
France has not only won this fourth qualifying leg, but boosted themselves into the top spot of the LLN standings. Tied for second are Germany and Great Britain. Brazil earns a place in Barcelona in the fourth spot, followed by Ireland, Belgium, USA, and Italy—our eight nations in the Final.
On to Barcelona!
