Shropshire equestrian star Oliver Townend looking at Olympic double
At 38, Oliver Townend has had to wait a long time for an Olympic gold medal but like London buses two could be about to come at once.
The equestrian star, who is based in Ellesmere, is top of both the individual and team eventing competitions heading into the final day in Tokyo, with just show jumping to come.
Townend and horse Ballaghmor Class produced a flawless cross-country round on Sunday morning to leap from second to first place overall.
He has 23.60 points, two fewer than Germany’s Julia Krajewski, while British teammate Laura Collett sits third.
Townend, Collett and Tom McEwan are also leading the team competition but Townend is refusing to get carried away.
“I don’t enjoy these things until I’m on the plane and on the way back. Then I can enjoy it more than you can ever imagine,” he said.
“We know he’s special, anyone who watches eventing knows he’s special. He’s tough, he digs deep, early on I thought he was slightly away with me, and in a couple of places it felt like he was in control and I was not.
“I sat behind him and tried to find good distances for him. Once I got into the course, I started picking up good, quick, big distances, almost racing distances to the straightforward fences and he answered beautifully.”
Tomorrow’ show jumping event starts at 9am UK time (5pm in Japan) and Townend has a margin for error in both competitions.
Britain have a two-point buffer in the team event ahead of Germany, while New Zealand sit third.
If Townend can replicate his cross-country performance, he will tough to stop and the Huddersfield-born rider surprised even himself with how well it went.
“He’s a tough horse in every aspect of life. He’s quirky but he’s tough, and the bottom line is he wants to do his job more than most horses”, he added.
“The early distances didn’t go quite how I imagined, in the first two waters. But they were very comfortable distances.
“When you start, you look at the terrain, you look at the intensity more than anything. A couple of bad ones and you’re losing time, you’re behind at your first minute with six jumping efforts and I thought it was going to be tough. I convinced myself last night that it wasn’t!”
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