Ludger Beerbaum, who missed his chance of defending his 1992 Olympic title when his mare Ratina went lame after steering Germany to team gold in Atlanta last summer, got his European championship campaign off to a dream start yesterday.

He stormed to victory in yesterday's opening speed leg to put himself at the top of the individual rankings and his country at the head of the teams on home ground in Mannheim.

Beerbaum and the entire German team pulled out of the last European championships in 1995, when appalling weather rendered the ground conditions in St Gallen virtually unjumpable. This year German organisers thankfully boast a sand arena, as torrential overnight rain and a continuous downpour throughout yesterday's class would certainly have brought about a similar walkout - although the Germans themselves could hardly withdraw from their own championships.

Beerbaum's victory certainly brought the sunshine back into the German camp, with the British four fences off the pace going into today's Nations Cup.

The Dutch are not too far adrift in third, but a disappointing start for the Irish has left the squad down in sixth with a substantial amount of ground to make up. Trevor Coyle made a supreme effort with the stallion Cruising and looked set for a real crack at the leaders, but a hind leg trailed the top rail off the unlucky 13th and the addition of five seconds for that mistake dropped the Irish pair from fourth to 11th.

Captain John Ledingham also found a crack in the luck of the Irish when Kilbaha put a leg down in the water jump, missing out on a potential seventh place and ending the day in 15th.

Those two performances would have been good enough to keep the Irish well in touch for today's Nations Cup if they had been backed up by one other good round. But two fences down from Paul Darragh and Eddie Macken's close to nightmare outing when Schalkhaar stopped at the viaduct wall and also hit three fences meant the deficit was too great for a placing any higher than sixth.