Double Olympic gold medalist Mark Todd came in as anchor rider for New Zealand, but 16 faults with Leonidas ll sent New Zealand chances crashing down.
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Jung is only the third eventer to win back-to-back Olympic titles.
Astier Nicolas (Piaf De B’Neville) and Thibaut Vallette (Qing Du Briot) both delivered clears. “Unfortunately, I did less well in the second round”. Dutton earned two Olympic gold medals when competing as an Australian national before emigrating to the U.S. He announced he would become an American citizen in 2006 and first competed for the U.S.in the Olympics in 2008.
Phillip Dutton of the United States, who had come within one fence of an individual medal in every major championship since 1994, won bronze on Mighty Nice. He became a US citizen in 2006. “I wasn’t expecting a medal today”.
“I was pretty happy with fourth”.
Rebecca Howard of Salmon Arm, B.C., was 10th riding Riddle Master.
Jung and Sam will start the final day of the multi-discipline sport in second behind Australia’s Christopher Burton while Germany, the team victor in 2008 and 2012, is in fourth. They finished with a score of 169.0, 3.8 points ahead of two-time defending Olympic champion Germany.
Australia’s Chris Burton found himself in third place before the final round but he had the last two fences down on Santano II.
Australia’s grip on the lead was severely undermined by a cricket score for their opener, Stuart Tinney, whose horse Pluto Mio kicked out four fences and also went over the time-allowed to collect 17 faults.
Germany’s Michael Jung (34) matched the record set by New Zealand’s Mark Todd at Los Angeles (USA) in 1984 and Seoul (KOR) in 1988 when making it a back-to-back double of individual Olympic Eventing golds at the Olympic Equestrian Venue in the Deodoro Olympic Park today. Their finishing score of 178.80 left them nearly three penalty points behind the Germans and in an exciting finish Australia’s Burton and Santano picked up eight faults to round up the Aussie finishing score to 175.30 for bronze, relegating New Zealand to fourth, 3.5 points adrift.
The celebrated 60-year-old Kiwi had to settle for seventh place this time around.
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Todd, who had a flawless second round to finish seventh, has five medals – the same as canoeists Ian Ferguson and Paul Macdonald.
