EQUESTRIAN/European Championships: Ireland's show jumpers line out for the defence of their European team gold at the European championships in Donaueschingen, Germany, today with only one member of the winning 2001 team still on board and with the necessity of Olympic qualification hanging like the sword of Damocles over their heads.
"Our main aim is to qualify for the Olympics," Tommy Wade said after yesterday's second class was cancelled following torrential rain. "To win the European championships would be a bonus."
The Irish claimed team gold for the first time two years ago, but Kevin Babington, who joined Dermott Lennon, Peter Charles and Jessica Kurten on the top step of the medal podium in Holland, is the sole survivor of the Arnhem squad.
Babington has more than earned his stripes for another crack at European gold. The New Jersey-based Tipperary-born rider was on the winning Nations Cup teams at both Aachen and St Gallen this year and then claimed the prestigious King George V Gold Cup at Hickstead last month, all with the chestnut Carling King.
Joining Babington on the team are Cian O'Connor, last year's leading rider in the Samsung Nations Cup league, and the two Cork riders, Robert Splaine and Billy Twomey.
Splaine and Twomey were also on the winning teams at Aachen and St Gallen, with Splaine's spectacular jump-off round clinching the Swiss victory. Just for good measure he also picked off the Grand Prix in St Gallen with the stallion Coolcorron Cool Diamond, while Twomey's main individual honours came in La Baule where he took the Grand Prix with another stallion, Luidam.
Splaine (42), is the veteran of the European side, but like 26-year-old Twomey, he is making his debut on a senior championship team. O'Connor cut his championship teeth, almost literally, at the world equestrian games in Jerez last year when Dermott Lennon took individual gold.
O'Connor's Spanish outing came to a premature end when he fell with Waterford Crystal in the first round of the team decider. The pair have rocketed back to form recently, notching up a double clear in the Hickstead Nations Cup last month for the second year running.
The team is without the services of Peter Charles, who last Sunday clinched his third successive Hickstead Derby win with the mare Corrada. Charles, individual gold medallist in 1995 and a member of the quartet that scooped the team title two years ago, will be on the ground in Donaueschingen, having asked team manager Tommy Wade to leave the Aga Khan team intact.
Despite second round clears in Dublin from Babington and Twomey, the team finished a disappointing equal third, but Charles believes that will have sharpened up the foursome and made them hungry for success in Germany.
They'll need to be hungry, as the opposition - particularly from the hosts - will be finely honed for the occasion.
Ludger Beerbaum, who celebrates his 40th birthday just two days after the championships, is aiming for a successful defence of his individual crown and, on home ground, will be hoping to make it double gold as he did in Mannheim six years ago.
But the French must be viewed as the most serious threat to Ireland's championship hopes. Having lifted team gold at last year's world games in spectacular style, they can do no wrong and now head the Samsung Super League by a six-point margin.
