Isabell Werth was foaming.

"I'm in a boil," she said, reaching for a water bottle.

She and her mare Weihegold had not received such a low mark for a Grand Prix as on Wednesday at the European Team Championship in Hagen: 79.860 percentage points.

She found that "incomprehensible", after which she forced herself to make a diplomatic statement with great self-control: "I don't think we have been overrated."

Evi Simeoni

Sports editor.

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Despite everything, as it turned out later, she had achieved the second-best result in the field and thus opened the way to the European championship title for the German team after a not entirely successful first day of competition.

In the meantime she is more relaxed again, she said with the gold medal on her chest.

But what remains: One was much, much better than it at this championship at the foot of the Teutoburg Forest.

Olympic champion Jessica von Bredow-Werndl from Aubenhausen completed the 25th German team European championship title and the third in a row.

Werth's colleague and rival in her own team on the Trakehner mare Dalera trumped the competition with a flawless performance, apparently effortlessly: 84.099 points, a world of its own.

"They kept a door open"

She doesn't want to appear unsportsmanlike, explained Werth, after all the most successful rider in the world, but after 30 years of experience at the very highest level she “definitely has a feeling for what a test should look like. That wasn't 83 or 85 percent today - but it was definitely somewhere around 80 or 81. ”She couldn't have asked for more after a concentrated performance with a slap in the two-canter changes. Her explanation: “It is clear that you might want to have a different team at the front than just the Germans. A door was kept open. "

If so, then both the British and Danish quartet have failed to step through. Shortly after Werth, the Englishman Carl Hester could have used the moment for a brilliant act, but he didn't. After various mistakes with his Olympic horse En Vogue, he had to be satisfied with 74.845 percentage points. That's it for the island, also Charlotte Dujardin with Gio could only contribute to second place with 79.829 percentage points. Third place went to the Danes, led by Cathrine Dufour and Bohemian with 79.721 percentage points.

So both world-class riders were very close to Isabell Werth's grade. National coach Monica Theodorescu tried to put Werth's indignation into perspective. “I'm not imposing on anyone that they come here with an idea, that this or that shouldn't be.” Nevertheless, they say it should have been 80 percentage points. Even if this is whining on a high level. But she's also good at talking: her team has won, and in the individual competitions on this Thursday (Grand Prix Special) and on Saturday (Freestyle) even more medals can be added.

But Isabell Werth has to fear a trend. Because a look at the grades of the seven judges actually reveals something strange: The grades ranged from more than 81 to 77.717 percentage points from the French judge Isabelle Judet - an all too large range, especially for a European Championship. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl acknowledged the situation with a smile. "I wished her so much that she would get more than 80 percent," she said kindly. The great champion, who she also defeated in Tokyo with her dream horse Bella Rose, has been left behind for the time being.

The fact that the competition got a certain tension on the second day was due to the fact that the first two German starters - by their standards - had weakened a little on Tuesday.

Dorothee Schneider, who played a key role in team gold in Tokyo, left her Olympic horse Showtime at home in Framersheim.

He was not 100 percent fit, she said.

So she switched to her second horse, the 13-year-old Hanoverian Faustus, a gelding with enormous power and a few more problems in the art of balancing his size and strength.

When he thunders through the diagonal at a strong gallop, it is a real spectacle.

It feels like motor boating, she said.

After two irregularities on the final line, she received 74.985 percentage points and was third-best German.

"It's my life to ride"

Helen Langehanenberg (Havixbeck) and her mare Annabelle were the ones who were happy to finally be able to ride again.

She had flown to Tokyo with her horse as a substitute rider, had endured all the unfavorable circumstances of the Corona games, especially the boredom, because she had to watch the others splendidly rode for medals.

It wasn't easy.

“It's my life to ride and not to stand on the edge”, she said in Hagen and wasn't sure whether she should be happy after her Grand Prix that she was allowed back into the arena or about her mishaps there annoy: "The mistakes in the lessons that count twice were unnecessary," she said.

Overall, however, the tried and tested motto applied to them: Being there is everything.