‘I’m beyond proud of him’: Olympic eventing cross-country pathfinder delighted with performance

The Paris Olympics cross-country is well and truly underway and Germany’s Julia Krajewski will have given her fellow competitors plenty of confidence as she jumped an assured clear round in the Olympic eventing aboard Nickel 21.

Julia picked finished 12 seconds over the 9min 2sec optimum time, picking up 4.8 time-faults to now sit on 31.7 with the relatively inexperienced 10-year-old.

“I’m beyond proud of Nickel,” said Julia, who was individual champion at the Tokyo Olympic riding Amande De B’Neville (‘Mandy’). “Before I thought, okay, he’s not Mandy and he’s not here to take me around, I’m there to take him around and hold his hand and and make it happen. But then I set off on him and he just did it as if I’ve done an Olympic course on him twice before. He’s so genuine and honest and trusting.”

Speaking of her slightly slow time, Julia said: “Maybe was a little bit careful in the beginning with the ground because, it’s not bad ground but it changes a lot on the way around, so we lost a bit of time here and there.

“For me, the most important thing was that he’s happy and fit for the last three minutes, so I didn’t want to push him too much in the beginning and that worked out perfectly.”

Julia explained she was “a bit brave” at the final water.

“But he took me along and I said okay, we’ll do it on five strides and five strides and I went the direct route as the time was running away, and he just did it like a pro. So that makes me very, very proud of him.”

Julia said that the course rode “as she thought and hoped it would”.

“You are aware that they have little options with a stride more or less in places, but it all really actually happened as we thought.”

The USA’s Caroline Pamukcu, who was sixth out on course aboard HSH Blake, was the first combination to fault on-course although she has said that she hopes the 20 penalties she incurred at fence 16c, The Viewpoint over the Grand Canal, will be removed by the ground jury. 

“He’s a phenomenal athlete and I’ve got to say the course was riding like a dream,” explained Caroline. “Then I came to that bank and he fell in the ditch, so I did the smartest option said ‘going long’ and jumped the different elements.

“He was fabulous and honestly most of it felt pretty easy. He feels like a seasoned pro and was super rideable in the beginning, and answered all the questions and I was really on my minutes markers, so I’m disappointed that I had to slow down after taking that long option.”

Sweden’s Sofia Sjoborg was the first to finish inside the optimum time when crossing the finish line with 13 seconds to spare aboard Bryjamolga VH Marienshof, but has been awarded with 15 penalties for missing a flag – this may be removed by the ground jury at the end of cross-country day.

“She just flew, so that was really cool,” said an understandable chuffed Sofia.

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