CHIO Aachen 2019

Vaulting World was at CHIO Aachen 2019 to give you insights of the competition and the results, of course. CHIO Aachen is an extraordinary competition and we were happy to be there on site!

The CHIO was, as always, perfectly organized and the crowd was amazingly enthousiast with the vaulting competition. This is definitely one of our favourite competitions of the season!

> Saturday

This year, we had seven teams competing. We must say that the two German Team Norka and Team Fredenbeck unleashed the crowd’s energy. Norka is still in a learning process with their new horse, but they were as strong as expected: They got a second place with 8.084. Fredenbeck was leading already after the compulsories, and got all freestyle scores above 9, and an 8 for their horse, Claus 51. They got the gold medal with a total score of 8.389. SVEA vaulting team from Sweden were on the 3rd rank after the compulsories (7.217), but lost their rank to let UVT Eligius (AUT) reach the podium: They scored a total of 8.086. 

Girls were in a very good shape on Saturday for the last round: the ten first vaulters of the ranking list scored above 8 for the freestyle! Team Neuss didn’t come for nothing to Aachen, as Janika Derks (GER) won the competition on Carousso Hit with a total score of 8.533. She was leading all of the rounds, but gave her knock-out on the last day, with her “Million Dollar Baby” (9.233).

Jessica Lichtenberg was also lunging Flamant, for the silver medalist Pauline Riedl (GER), who finished with 8.335.

We have to highlight the performance of Sheena Bendixen (DEN) who got the second best freestyle (9.107) right after Janika with the song “Survivor” from the Destiny’s Child. Sheena got a well deserved bronze medal, with 8.237.

Alina Roß (GER) and Corinna Knauf (GER) did a very good competition too, with both a total score above 8, and a qualification for the FEI European Championships in Ermelo for Corinna Knauf, together with Janika Derks and Pauline Riedl to represent Germany.

In the male section we also saw several exceptionally good rounds which made the end of Saturday very exciting. After a perfectly executed freestyle (9.283), Thomas Brüsewitz won the competition with a final score of 8.680 and made Kai Vorberg, his national coach, cry with this amazing result. Thomas had to compete with a different horse because Danny Boy, as many of you already know the terrible news, passed away very recently.

Julian Wilfling (GER), alias Woody from Toy Story had a great competition, scoring the highest technical score in his freestyle with an incredible 9.800. He looked very happy with his great freestyle performance and finished second with a total score of 8.543.

Jannik Heiland (GER) was slightly below the others in the technical test (5th place) because he lost his balance during the underarm stand. Nevertheless, he fought his way back and got the bronze medal with a total of 8.511.

Viktor Brüsewitz (GER) scored above 8 and definitely won the audience’s heart with his fun freestyle theme about his own performance at the Ninja Warrior TV show. Jannis Drewell (GER) also scored above 8 and finished 5th of the final ranking. Thomas Brüsewitz, Jannik Heiland and Jannis Drewell qualified for the FEI European Championships in Ermelo to represent Germany. 

> Sunday

Six Pas-de-Deuxs from four different nations were attending the CHIO, but the top 3 was 100 % German here again: Janika Derks & Johannes Kay won, after a tough fight against Chiara Congia & Justin van Gerven, as expected: The first couple got 8.497 and the second 8.481! The third pair was not too far either: Harwardt & Peter Künne got a final score of 8.384. 

Nations Cup was a very intense moment, with 5 nations represented: 

• Germany I: Jannik Heiland, Janika Derks, Team NORKA
• Germany II: Jannis Drewell, Julian Wilfling, Team Fredenbeck
• Austria: Dominik Eder, Sarah Koch, Team UVT Eligius
• Sweden: Ella Filippa Velander, Marie Li Korse, SVEA vaulting team
• Switzerland: Céline Hofstetter, Lukas Heppler, Team Harlekin I

Germany I won, with a slight advance on Germany II: even though Team Fredenbeck got a higher score than Team NORKA (9.152 vs 9.053), the individuals made the difference to reach a total score of 27.445. They were followed very closely by Germany II (27.275), so everybody was in tension when waiting for the scores! Austria was fighting in the battle and finished with 24.470, including their two individuals scoring above 8.

We have to mention that Team Fredenbeck did an incredibly good job since their team member Mila got injured on Saturday and they competed with Hannah Steverding without any horse training on Sunday!

Our best wishes to Mila and congratulations to all winners and participants!

We asked a few questions to the winners during the press conference today. You can watch again our livestream on Instagram (for German speakers). 

We had a great time at the CHIO Aachen, we hope you liked our content and see you next year!

You can check the detailed results on the CHIO Aachen website.