Golden glory

Britain scoops team gold for the first time since 2012, with individual medals and exciting horses sending hopes sky-high ahead of Paris 2024

A British bonanza

The reigning Olympic champion is untouchable to defend her European title, but Britain shows strength in depth to recapture team gold - and two individual medals

FEI European Dressage Championships, Riesenbeck, Germany

TEAM gold, two bronzes and a silver. That is Britain’s tally from the European Championships in Germany, a haul beyond the expectations of even the most ardent of British fans. Team medals have been prolific over the past decade, but that gold has been tantalisingly elusive. Under a scorching September sun in Westphalia, Britain finally regained the crown she’d last worn in London 2012.

While Team GB is back in the big-time, Germany’s superstar partnership of Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and TSF Dalera BB appear to be reaching new peaks.

Every so often, once in a generation, a truly spellbinding rivalry emerges, and the sport is so much the richer for it. We’ve seen it in tennis with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic; now the young pretender Alcaraz is trying to wrest the latter’s crown. And their head-to-heads are all the more tantalising because we know it’s a small window before age calls time on Djokovic’s career. But right now, he seems, almost impossibly, to be getting better.

And so it is with the great Dalera – Olympic and now double European champion – who swept all before her at this year’s renewal in Riesenbeck.

These championships were billed as the showdown between Dalera and the world champion Glamourdale, but the chasing pack proved so much more than just one challenger to the established champion.