2004 Olympic Games - Eventing

Germany Wins Team Gold Afterall

by Astrid Appels of Eurodressage.com

Well, Germany seems to have won the team gold medal in eventing afterall. The German camp appealed the appeal of the French. The Germans denied that it was a false start and that the blaim is to lay on the officials who made a late call.

"The judges said I was faultless with no penalties. They put that on the scoreboard and you can not appeal to their decision. If I was wrong crossing the starting line too early, the judges should have penalised me right away," Bettina Hoy said. "It's like football. You can say afterwards, "Oh I made a bad call there, let's drop that score." They had to say right away that I was wrong."

The officials have now decided to keep the initial score which means that Germany wins team gold, France team silver and Great Britain team bronze.

The award ceremony has taken place with this ranking, but it is definite that both France, Great Britain and America will be appealing that decision.

This is going to be a story set to run and run

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