Equestrian Trio Clinch Silver

Western Australia has clinched their first silver medal of the Beijing Games after Clayton Fredericks, Lucinda Fredericks and Sonja Johnson were all members of Australian equestrian eventing team that claimed second place in Hong Kong last night.

The WA trio joined teammates Megan Jones and Shane Rose on the podium at the Sha Tin Racecourse after the team was narrowly pipped by Germany for the gold.

Going into the final show jumping round the Germans held a slim 3.9 point advantage which they managed to extend to 5.2 points by the time all five riders from each team had completed the course. It was a nail biting conclusion to the three day event with 5.2 points equating to less than two penalty fences.

The final German rider clipped a number of rails on the last round of the night but the rails stayed in place, securing gold for his team with an overall score of 166.10 penalty points. Australia finished with 171.20 while Great Britain got the bronze with 185.70.

It was the fourth time in the last five Games that Australia had medalled in the team eventing, following golds in three straight Olympics from 1992-2000.

Albany farmer Johnson was Australia’s best performer in the show jumping round, going through with no fence penalties and no time penalties.

After her ride on Ringwould Jaguar she couldn’t contain her excitement.

“I know I don’t always ride the prettiest round in the world but the prettiest thing we were after is that zero (penalties) on the board,” she told Olympics.com.au.

“So therefore I think it’s probably been one of the prettiest rounds of the night.”

Western Australia’s medal tally now stands at one silver and two bronze.