German Team occupies place 6 at the Nationscup-Final

Barcelona (fn-press).
On Friday evening sovereign winner in the qualification, but then only sixth in the final: The German show jumping team with Daniel Deußer (Rijmenam/Belgium), André Thieme (Plau am See), Christian Ahlmann (Marl) and David Will (Marburg) had certainly imagined the highly endowed Nations Cup Final in Barcelona differently.

It was going so well on Friday evening: At the floodlit jumping competition in the famous Polo Club in Barcelona, 15 nations competed in the qualifier for the grand final, and shortly before midnight the best eight teams had won their tickets for the 1.25 million euro show jumping competition on Sunday, with the German team leading the way with a brilliant victory with only two faults. Two days later, the picture was different. The quartet, accompanied by national coach Otto Becker as head of the equipe, was unable to build on their performance. The very first rider burdened the account with eleven faults: Daniel Deußer and the Belgian mare Killer Queen collected a drop at the first jump. The mare refused to jump the fourth obstacle, a double combination with a triple bar and then a steep jump. European Champion André Thieme was the next to ride his Brandenburg mare DSP Chakaria (by Chap) to the finish with a sovereign clear round. Unfortunately, it remained the only clear performance, as the third pair, David Will and the Holstein gelding C-Vier (by Cardento), fluffed at the water and at the last obstacle. Christian Ahlmann and the Belgian gray stallion Clintrexo Z could not save anything: Five fault points were added, in total the German team finished with 13 faults.

National coach Otto Becker made no secret of his disappointment: "Of course this is a bitter result. It started very unfortunate with Daniel's mistake. André was zero, but after that nothing went right. We'll put that behind us now and look ahead. That was the end of a very intense season."

The winners came from the Netherlands: Maikel van der Vleuten and Beauville Z, Willem Grewe and Carambole as well as Harrie Smolders and Monaco each managed clear rounds, so that the Oranje team finished the Nations Cup Final with a "clean slate." Financially, the top performance really paid off, as the team will receive prize money of 417,000 euros. The Irish claimed second place (one fault point), followed by the Belgians (four). A small consolation for the German team is that at least the travel expenses have been recouped, as sixth place was still worth 75,000 euros. hen