Toyota Canada is a partner of the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees. With no spectators to cheer on our Canadian athletes Toyota came up with a plan for Virtual cheering. They have organized a coast to coast movement of people doing a wave via video or photo and using the hashtag #ToyotaWave. The athletes in Tokyo will know we are cheering for them even if we are not there. Here is the video we did at the barn with two horses, Piper and Dave joining in. Two Time Olympian, and my coach, Belinda Trussell is in the center wearing a white hat and waving a Canadian flag. I am the one with a flag and red socks!
There are some interesting statistics about Dressage at the Olympics that I found in Horse Sport digital magazine.
Facts & Figures
30 countries for the 2021 Olympic Equestrian events.
15 teams
15 countries represented by individual competitors
60 horse/athlete combinations
Germany are defending team champions and are chasing down their 14th Olympic Equestrian Dressage team title
In the history of Olympic Equestrian Dressage, which dates back to 1912, Germany has long been the dominant force, taking 13 team and seven individual titles
Defending individual champion is Great Britain’s Charlotte Dujardin, who scooped double-gold with the great Valegro at London 2012 and individual gold at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games
Dujardin and Valegro consistently set World Records throughout their spectacular career together and continue to hold all three World Records in Dressage (FEI Grand Prix, FEI Grand Prix Special and FEI Grand Prix Freestyle)
At the London International Horse Show in 2014 they set the Grand Prix record at 87.460%, and at the same event posted a new Freestyle World Record when achieving 94.300%
The Grand Prix Special World Record score of 88.022%, which they set at Hagen (GER) in 2012 has never been beaten
Germany’s Isabell Werth (51) will be competing in her sixth Olympic Games. The most medalled athlete in the history of equestrian sport, she has 10 Olympic medals in her trophy cabinet and six of them are gold, the first awarded in Barcelona (ESP) in 1992 and the last at Rio de Janeiro (BRA) in 2016
At Rio, Werth surpassed the record held for many years by The Netherlands’ Anky van Grunsven, who collected nine Olympic medals throughout her spectacular career
Riding Gigolo, Werth claimed individual gold in Atlanta (USA) in 1996 and she is a four-time individual silver medallist
Caroline Chew, 27, is set to become the first Singaporean to compete in equestrian sport at the Olympic Games when she participates in Dressage.
And introducing Piper who was a calm and willing participant in our #ToyotaWave!
Our other willing participant was Dave who was wearing the ‘Olympic’ red cooler.
Dave is one of Belinda’s horses.
Leave a Reply to cigarman501Cancel reply