The brilliant Pas De Deux Silvia Stopazzini and Lorenzo Lupacchini from Italy moved everybody yesterday night at the FEI World Equestrian Games™ Tryon: Apparently, they didn’t expect to reach the gold medal but they actually made history for their country, being the first Italians to reach it at FEI World Equestrian Games™ with a final score of 9.027, and after a very high level battle with the other competitors. Their samba/salsa energizing routine was perfectly executed on their beautiful horse Rosentolz 99 lunged by Laura Carnabuci.

“The horse today was not as perfect as yesterday, he was a bit afraid and looking around but he always pays attention to the exercices so it was enough to let them perform well […] he’s a really clever horse and he loves competing I think”, said Laura.

Silver goes to the multi medalist Austrian pair Jasmin Lindner and Lukas Wacha with a fantastic final score as well: 9.013. After an injury last year, Lukas came back as strong as before but it was not enough to make it to the top this year because of a small mistake at the beginning of their second round. They train together as a Pas De Deux for about 7 years now, creating their very own style and chose this year the chess game as theme, inspired by “Schachnovelle” a novel written by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig.

The elegant German Pas De Deux Janika Derks and Johannes Kay kept the 3rd position in the final ranking and walk away from the competition with the bronze medal, even after a slightly more difficult round as the horse was a bit under regime. The risk they have taken with their astounding spinning final move (called the “head spinner”) totally paid off in both rounds.

“It was harder in some positions and situations but we fought to the end and we are really happy of this round”, said Johannes.

> Technical Test

Regarding the female competition, Janika Derks wins the tech test round with 8.077 and a flawless performance apart from the dismount where she got a -1 fault on the performance score for touching the ground with her hands. She is currently standing in the third place with 8.228.

In the meantime, Kristina Boe is still leading the overall ranking after the three of four rounds with 8.278, followed by Lisa Wild (8.229) who scored 7.894 for the technical test.

Anna Cavallaro sadly injured her knee dismounting of her technical test, we won’t see her for the final round which is a shame as she is currently standing in the fourth place.

On the male’s side, Lambert Leclezio (FRA) goes to the top of the current standings (8.572) after the best technical test from afar (8.443) and with two judges scoring above 9.

The young Colombian Juan Martin Clavijo was also remarkable in this round, with 8.166 for his technical test, which makes him goes to the current fifth position.

Jannik Heiland and Jannis Drewell are respectively in the second and third positions with 8.483 and 8.441 after their technical tests scored 7.995 for Jannik with the theme “War Horse” and 8.116 for Jannis as “Sherlock Holmes”.

The competition will start again on Saturday for the final of individuals who still need to take their second freestyle test as well as the squads. Team Norka from Germany is currently leading the ranking with 8.405 after the first round – 0.001 ahead from Team Lütisburg from Switzerland. Team Wildegg (AUT) is a bit behind with 7.977 in the third position. 

For start lists, current standings and results check out our blog post WEG Tryon 2018: Schedule, Start Lists and Results.