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Paris 2024: Germany's von Bredow-Werndl wins dressage gold

August 4, 2024

German dressage rider Jessica von Bredow-Werndl has taken her second gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, winning the solo event. Meanwhile, her teammate Isabell Werth took silver.

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Jessica von Bredow-Werndl with the gold around her neck
Von Bredow-Werndl and her horse gave their performance to a medley of French chanson musicImage: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa/picture alliance

German dressage rider Jessica von Bredow-Werndl continued her Olympic gold streak on Sunday, this time winning in the individual dressage event at the Paris Olympics.

A day earlier, she and teammates Isabell Werth and Frederic Wandres clinched the team gold.

How the event unfolded

With an impressive freestyle Grand Prix routine, von Bredow-Werndl finished in top place, ahead of fellow German Isabell Werth and Briton Charlotte Fry. 

The 38-year-old and her mare Dalera performed highly complex and difficult maneuvers to a medley of French chanson music.

Werth also put on a gala performance in the freestyle. The 55-year-old, whose first gold came at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, thrilled the 15,000 spectators with a routine set to a pastiche of the Barry Manilow romantic ballad "Mandy." The lyrics were rewritten to "Wendy," the name of Werth's mare.

Bredow-Werndl was awarded 90.093 percentage points, Werth secured 89.614, and world champion Fry, riding Glamourdale, received 88.971.

For von Bredow-Werndl it was a repeat of a double victory in Tokyo's Olympic Games in 2021.

Record-breaking tally nudges higher

A day earlier, Werth and von Bredow-Werndl had already won a gold medal in the team Grand Prix. But the pair had little time to celebrate, with preparations for the freestyle — that saw them pitted as rivals — beginning that evening.

Isabell Werth with her silver medal
Werth picked up silver, further expanding up her already record-breaking medal collectionImage: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa/picture alliance

With the narrow team victory on Saturday, Werth became Germany's record medalist with a tally that, after the individual event, now includes eight golds and six silvers.

Canoeist Birgit Fischer is Germany's number two, having won eight Olympic gold medals and four silver medals in her career. 

"That's very, very special," Werth said of her Olympic record. "Of course, that makes me proud."

"I'm going for a drink with Birgit soon," she added. "We both really achieved something."

rc/rmt (dpa, SID)