Equestrian:The Irish team of Shane Sweetnam, Jessica Kurten, Cian O'Connor and Denis Lynch finished in equal fifth place with Britain and Switzerland at today's (Friday) Nations' Cup in La Baule, France.
The first leg of the 2012 show jumping Superleague, which features the world’s top eight teams, saw such a tight finish that the Netherlands were forced to enter a jump-off for first place with Belgium, which the latter ultimately won.
Ireland finished the first round on just eight faults, with an opening clear from Cork’s Sweetnam and Amaretto Darco, with Kurten and Vincente accumulating five faults, O’Connor on Blue Loyd and Lynch with Lantinus each having one fence down.
Sweetnam started the second round with four faults, but the Irish team rallied with superb clear rounds from both Kurten and O’Connor. However, Lynch and Lantinus again had a pole on the ground, to leave the Irish tally at 12 faults at the finish. Belgium and the Netherlands both finished on four faults, with the jump-off producing victory for the former.
Afterwards Team Ireland’s show jumping manager Robert Splaine said: “This was a very tough competition. Olympic qualification was at stake for many of the combinations at La Baule today, so the level of competition was incredible.
“All of our riders put in good performances but at the end of the day we just didn’t get enough clear rounds, although Shane Sweetnam gave us a great start and we had two more zero scores from Jessica Kurten and Cian O’Connor. Overall, I was pleased with the performance of our combinations and I’ just disappointed we didn’t finish higher on the leaderboard.”