The first two Dutch riders kicked off the Championships fairly well and it was now up to Madeleine Witte-Vrees and Edward Gal to secure a medal. Sadly, the tests didn’t entirely go as planned.

Madeleine wasn’t able to prepare for the Grand Prix as she would have liked, since Cennin arrived in the Swedish city with a slight fever. With a mistake in a pirouette, several in the one tempis and a last line in which Cennin seemed to lack in power, the score was only 71,529%. This put pressure on Edward Gal, who was standing for an almost impossible task. He had to take a risk, which unfortunately resulted in a mistake in the one tempi changes as well. A score of 72,529% brought the total on 216,628 in the teamtest, which put the Netherlands in a disappointing fifth place.

There is a silver lining in this team competition, though. All the TeamNL riders qualified for the Special next Friday. Diederik and Four Seasons, who initially were selected as the fourth rider for the team, was the highest ranked Dutch. A remarkable performance of which we are al proud.

Another rider-horse combination that fills us with pride, is the brand new duo Anna Zibrandtsen and Arlando (photo). The Danish rider has only been in the saddle of Diederik’s former top horse for about five months now, but already the results are wonderful. Their score of 72,957% was an important contribution to Denmark’s team result and brought home the silver medal.