From Coma To Olympic Gold

Laura caps comeback from fall and death threats

- Jeremy Armstrong

Olympic eventing champion Laura Collett had already won her biggest battles before taking team gold in Tokyo yesterday.

She helped Great Britain top the podium in the discipline for the first time in 49 years alongside Oliver Townend and Tom McEwen.

Victory sealed a remarkable comeback for the 31-year-old who nearly died in a fall eight years ago and spent six days in a coma.

Laura suffered a punctured lung, fractures to her spine, shoulder and ribs and lost most of her vision in one eye.

And two years later, she had to contend with death threats.

Double Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Kauto Star was being trained at Laura’s base for a dressage career after retiring from racing.

But the popular racer was put down after complications from a freak fall at the stables in 2015.

Trolls on social media wrongly suggested he had run into a wall.

Laura, just 23 at the time, hit out at the “malicious rumours” and insisted she had “never cried so much in my life” after he was euthanised.

But yesterday Laura put those tough times behind her.

She said: “I know I am lucky just to be alive, let alone doing the job I love and to be winning a gold Olympic medal.

“Just to be here was more than a dream come true.”

“I am super grateful to be on a team with these two guys. It has been an unbelievable week, and roll on the celebrations.”