Olympics: Tamarillo Injury Leaves Riders With Hopes in Tatters

A thoroughly disappointing day for Britain's three-day eventing team, which had begun the cross-country section with high hopes of team and individual gold medals, had the tin lid put on it late last night when William Fox-Pitt's horse Tamarillo was found to be lame.

The pair were lying fifth in the individual standings, one place up from their dressage placing. Fox-Pitt had believed he was still in with a chance, as did the team, but with Tamarillo suffering a broken bone all Britain's medal chances appear lost.

They had already slipped from first to third in the team standings behind France and Germany before Tamarillo's withdrawal dropped them a further place. Pippa Funnell, the gold medal favourite, dropped from second to eighth.

Yogi Breisner, the eventing chef d'équipe, had struggled to stay upbeat. "It's all to play for or we could lose it all," he said before the discovery of Tamarillo's injury. Now, as in 1992 and 1996, the team appears likely to return home empty-handed.

It is all a far cry from the 1972 Munich games when they struck double gold and Richard Meade became a household name. The pre-Athens belief was that this bunch of riders, led by Funnell, had the talent and experience to emulate Meade and co but the dreams faded to virtually nothing, first under the blue skies of a perfect morning and then after nightfall.

The day's troubles began when Funnell and her strapping 11-year-old bay gelding, Primmore's Pride, realised the team management's worst fears that the course was simply not demanding enough.

Although Primmore's Pride cleared each of the 34 obstacles, with considerable ease in most cases, Funnell finished 28 seconds outside the allowed time of 9min 46sec. Penalty points are incurred at 0.4 for every second over the limit, which meant 11.2 for Funnell.

"Primmy is a classic and bold three-day horse but unfortunately he couldn't be seen at his best on this course," said Funnell. "He's such a big horse and it's harder to stay balanced around such a tight course. The second half in particular was full of twists and turns and I couldn't just let him go. We had always been aware of the time problem."

The heat of mid-summer in Greece is fearsome and this course had been designed to minimise stress. None of the riders disagreed, though many remained unhappy with other changes made in the name of economic pragmatism.

Three-day eventing, expensive and largely elitist, has its detractors within the International Olympic Committee, although the IOC could hardly be accused of being populist and financially frugal itself. The sport is not under immediate threat but there were significant financial cut-backs here, namely the abolition of the pre-cross-country steeplechase section.

The format for the major events at Badminton and Burleigh has not changed, which effectively makes these Olympics a less demanding event, militating against big horses like Primmore's Pride.

"We always knew that Pippa was going to find it difficult," said Breisner. "He was very, very headstrong with Pippa having to pull him back. Obviously I would have liked the course to have been bigger but taking the dressage and cross-country into account as well, Pippa's horse was still much better than most others."

The conditions could have been worse. A pleasant breeze sprang up during the early morning and there were water sprays to cool the horses. However, when Austria's Andreas Zehrer fell early on there was clear concern, with thoughts drifting back to Rome in 1960 when 35 of the 73 starters failed to complete the cross-country course and two horses were killed. Fortunately this fall proved a false alarm and only four of yesterday's 75 competitors were eliminated.

The majority of a fairly sparse crowd clustered around the water jump, where two small boats had to be jumped for the quickest way through. Such an obstacle might have spooked horses but there were few spills; indeed 55 did not incur a single jumping penalty, including all five Britons.

Funnell, whose pre-event nerves are legendary - "I slept OK but was quite poorly in the morning" - had remained hopeful that by going clear today she might have been able to help convert a team medal into something better than bronze. Then came the late news of Fox-Pitt's horse, on which he had won Badminton in the spring.

There remains a small possibility that the gloom may be lifted in the show-jumping ring today but, even before the withdrawal of Fox-Pitt's horse, the mood in the British camp had been sombre. The injury to Tamarillo can only have dispelled their last drop of optimism.

It is not in the nature of Funnell or the rest of the team to give up until today's last fence has been jumped but what had promised to be a golden Olympics turned to base metal on a day when little or nothing went right, collectively or individually.