Canada's Mario Deslauriers qualifies for equestrian individual jumping Olympic final
Finishes 5th among riders tied for 1st with a time of 84.76 and no penalties
Canada's Mario Deslauriers has qualified for the equestrian individual jumping final after finishing the qualifying round near the top of the field following a clean ride at Tokyo Equestrian Park Tuesday.
Deslauriers finished in a time of 84.76 with no penalties to qualify fifth among the riders who tied for first. The top 30 of the 73 riders qualified for the final, which goes Wednesday.
Deslauriers and his horse Bardolina 2 are Canada's only horse and rider in the individual competition.
After the qualifying round, Deslauriers said it was a challenging qualifier for the horses and riders because light was reflecting off the ground and some of the jumps were, as he described them, "colourful." Bardolina is an alert, attentive horse, he said, so she was looking around more than usual.
"At the end of the day she jumped great and we got the job done," he told CBC Sports.
Canada was not allowed to send a show jumping team to Tokyo after it was stripped of its fourth-place finish at the 2019 Pan Am Games in Peru after Nicole Walker tested positive for a cocaine metabolite.
She said she inadvertently ingested the substance while drinking coca tea, which is a common drink in Peru.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport agreed Walker didn't intentionally take a banned substance, but said it didn't have the authority to overturn the Pan Am disciplinary commission's decision that dropped Canada out of the fourth and final Pan Am qualification berth for Tokyo.
At age 56, Deslauriers is the oldest member of Team Canada at these Olympics. He was born in Quebec but lives in New York.
The Tokyo Games are Deslauriers' third Olympics, though it's been some time since he's stood on one of the sporting world's biggest stages. He finished fourth in both the individual and team jumping final at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, and finished 30th in the individual and fourth in the team final at the 1988 Games in Seoul.
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He finished 15th in the individual event at the 2019 Pan Am Games.
"I think it's always exciting to go to the Olympic Games for your country," Deslauriers said. He was much younger at his first two Olympics and perhaps didn't fully grasp the meaning of it all, he said.
"I think today with more experience and 30 years later, I appreciate the state of being here again."
Topping the field in Tuesday's qualifier was Ben Maher of Great Britain, who won silver at the 2019 European championships. His best Olympic result was ninth in the individual event at the 2012 London Games.
He was followed in the top three by Kenny Darragh of Ireland and Ashlee Bond of Israel.
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With files from The Canadian Press
