How does individual medal vs team work in eventing

[Huntin_Fool]

Dear All,

I love to watch the eventing stuff at the Olympics but am totally confused as to how individual and team medals work. I have looked on line and drawn a blank, so I’m asking y’all :).

So person A on horse Z competes for the team. Do they simultaneously compete individually? I assume, from watching and reading, that A can compete horse Y or even Y and X in addition to Z and certainly would be competing for an individual medal on X and Y since Z is the team horse.

But if A on Z is going to compete individually too, does Z have to jump another show jumping course? Is the show jumping course the individual guys jump different from the show jumping course those competing for team medals jump? Surely no horse would be asked to jump 2 show jumping courses after that grueling cross country?

I would guess that the A and Z team could be considered for an individual medal as well as a team medal, but just from commentary I’ve read or heard it almost seemed like 1. A and Z jumped another show jumping round to be considered for the individual medal and 2 that the individual show jumping round was different.

Please enlighten me!

Best regards,
Huntin’Fool

[Janet]

We are all confused. The problem is that it keeps changing.

Under the CURRENT rules, this is my understanding, though I my have a few details wrong.

First of all, there are no “individual only” horses or riders at the Olympics any more. Every horse/rider is part of a team. Some teams may only have one or two horse/rider pairs, but they are still officially competing as a “team”.

No rider can ride more than one horse.

Each national team has 1,2,or3 horse/rider pairs. They may also have a 4th “backup” (I think it is only a horse, but I am not sure on that) that can fill in (with a significant points penalty) if something happens to one of the team horses.

For the team competition, any horse that doesn’t complete (either Eliminated or Retired) gets a significant additional points penalty. which is added into the team score.

After the team competition completes, the top n horses (I think 25, but I could be wrong) are allowed to ride over a second (different) show jumping course for the individual medals. The score on this second SJ course is added to the score from the team competition (so, yes, they DO jump two SJ rounds). When the teams were 4 horses, there was a rule that only 3 horse/rider pairs from the same country could advance to the individual show jumping round. They may have reduced that to 2 per country with the new 3-member teams, but I am not sure.

The second SJ round is because the Olympics decided that a competitor could not win 2 medals (team medal and individual medal) for the same performance.

Hope that helps

[Huntin_Fool]

Yes, but good lord! That seems so hard on the horse that’s just done the cross country AND a show jumping course. I am guessing that the 2nd show jumping course is smaller/shorter. Of course now that I think of it-the short format is so much easier than the long format it may be easier.