For five full days of competition, minus three fences, Nick Skelton and Big Star had cleared everything put in front of them.
On Monday their foot-perfect work had helped the Great Britain team to the country’s first showjumping gold medal for 50 years, so when the fateful clip came in the individual competition yesterday it felt especially cruel.
It came at the Cutty Sark — the eighth of the 10-fence course. The 21,000 crowd sighed as the top bar toppled off.
Skelton was the last rider out and it immediately robbed him of a jump-off for the gold medal against the Swiss Steve Guerdat and his mount Nino des Buissonnets.
Instead, he was joint fifth.
Memories of his disappointment at Athens eight years ago, when he led going into the final round only for two mistakes to erase his gold medal prospects, were in all our minds.
But not in his, he claimed afterwards. He was philosophical in a to-the-point sort of way.
‘It’s a heart-breaking sport,’ he said. ‘People can see this is a brutal sport. You hit one and you’re gone. But I know what it is like. There are ups and downs. I could win in Dublin next week. We could do this again tomorrow and I could win. But that is how it is.
‘It has happened before; it happened again. That’s our game. What can you do? You can’t go back and do it again. I feel sorry for the people that came today. We expected to win and it wasn’t to be.’
Skelton is 54 and a fighter. He broke his neck in 2000 and retired. He wrote his memoirs: Only Falls and Horses. He also had a hip replacement last year.
Despite the setbacks, he has been a regular winner at world and European level for more than 30 years. But he could still not accomplish what no Briton has ever managed, namely win an individual Olympic showjumping gold medal.
After six Olympics, the team success will have to suffice. For now, anyway. ‘I’ll be in Rio in four years,’ he said. ‘Big Star will only be 13 and I’ll be…58. I’ll keep going as long as he does. I need three months off and surgery on my back then I’ll start again.
‘Big Star is fantastic. He jumped great and he hadn’t touched a jump all week. He’s still fresh. He could go again. He’s unlucky.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2185460/London-2012-Olympics-Nick-Skelton-just-misses-individual-medal.html