Dressage at the Olympics: men vs women, mares vs stallions

Yuri Kovshov (USSR) – silver, Elisabeth Teurer (Austria) – gold, Viktor Ugryumov (USSR) – bronze.

XXII Summer Olympic Games (1980). Central Stadium named after V.I. Lenin (now the Luzhniki stadium).

Photo source: sputnik-ossetia

In the coming Olympic Games in Tokyo dressage will be attended by 15 teams and 15 individual riders. And in a continuation of a trend that began at the 1972 Olympics, the majority of riders at these Games are women.

This time four countries Australia, Denmark, Germany и Russia – all women’s teams were put up. And only the host country, Japan, declared a team consisting entirely of male riders.

Games in Tokyo will be the most numerous by the number of participants in almost a century of Olympic dressage history. This time, 60 couples will take to the battlefield. Prior to that, according to the rules of the Olympics, only 50 pairs were allowed to participate.

Initially women could not participate dressage Olympics – this sport was considered exclusively male, and the countries were represented by officers and representatives of the cavalry. In 1952, four women for the first time was allowed to participate in the Olympics. By 1956 Germany put up completely female the team that won the silver medal set. However, the judges were so objective in trying to make the team Sweden (who eventually won first place) as the winner, which was considered for exclusion of dressage from the Olympic Games program.

In 1960, the dressage team standings not carried out.

At the first Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 Germany, Soviet Union, Sweden и Japan fielded all men’s teams, and the US team became the only women’s team. Its membership included Jessica Newberry Ranshausen – one of two American women who took part in three Olympics (1960, 1964 and 1988).

The trend towards more female riders in Olympic dressage began in 1972. It was then that the ratio first changed in favor of women. The only exception since then was the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which was boycotted by most countries.

On the Olympic Games London 2012 There were 36 women and 14 men. It was this year that the largest number of female athletes took part in dressage – 72%. The Tokyo 2021 Olympics will feature 37 women and 23 men.

Great Britain team at the London Olympics / Photo from sport.ria.ru

As for the horses, then in the upcoming Games will participate: 11 mares, 18 stallions and 31 geldings.

Of the 60 horses that went to Tokyo, a total of 18 are registered as Dutch Halfbloods, 10 Hanovers, seven Oldenburgs and six Lusitanos.

For comparison, in 2012 the ratio was quite different: among the performing horses, the Hanoverian breed prevailed, only six representatives of the KWPN Studbook, Oldenburg and Lusitano, five Danish Half-blood horses and other representatives of various breeds.