What a triumvirate!
The German dressage riders deserved rapturous applause for their performances on this golden Tuesday in Tokyo.
But even in front of empty stands in the Baji Koen Equestrian Park, one beamed happier than the other after their rides in the Grand Prix Special - the gold medal for the German team, which everyone had expected, was not in question for a moment.
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, who achieved the top result of the day with her mare Dalera with 84.666 percentage points - and that despite a mistake in the canter changes, set the glamorous end of the race.
Evi Simeoni
Sports editor.
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Isabell Werth with Bella Rose also contributed a top result to the success with 83.298, Dorothee Schneider with Showtime also stayed above the eighty percentage point mark that separates the world leaders from the super world leaders: 80.231 for her. It is already the 14th Olympic gold for a German team - the United States won silver by a large margin, ahead of Great Britain. And it is the seventh gold for Isabell Werth in her sixth games. What else will be added? This Wednesday in the singles final it starts again from zero. And as much as this team victory was a success with an announcement, so little is it the individual ranking.
Anyway, Dalera, the fourteen-year-old Trakehner mare, is in the shape of her life.
Everything this horse does in the arena seems so effortless that you forget the meticulousness and hard work behind it.
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, the indefatigable, has worked her way to the top for years, and now she has arrived.
Only one uncertainty occasionally tarnishes the happiness of the Bavarian: Sometimes Dalera starts to apples in the middle of the performance, so that the lesson in question is disturbed.
Werth seems to be enjoying himself
This time it happened shortly before the gallop changes from jump to jump, which require maximum concentration - and the start failed. The fact that the two achieved the top mark of the day despite such a lapse, which resulted in a significant deduction of points, shows what cushion they had already earned - also in comparison with the Queen, Isabell Werth, who had presented a strong performance. The Olympic debutante is seventeen years younger than the great master, whom she wants to dethrone in Tokyo with a beaming smile.
But no, this time you didn't see a Werth-Faust at the end of the performance. Something has changed over the years for the German dressage diva. The proven fighter apparently no longer experiences the games as the ultimate show of strength. She seems to be enjoying it. At least that's how it could be read on her face when Bella Rose had taken up the greeting line-up and could still be admired a bit like a fox-colored monument. Isabell Werth sat in the saddle and relaxed. A smile spread across her, she was satisfied, and you could see it: She was experiencing one of those rare moments of happiness that life brings to a person. That was what she had dreamed of, that was what she had fought for.