Olympic bronze for Cian O'Connor
Meath showjumper Cian O'Connor enjoyed a dramatic reversal of fortune when he won a bronze medal at the London Olympics today. The Rathfeigh-based showjumper got an unexpected piece of good news earlier in the day when he was told he was participating in the final after Swedish rider Rolf Goran Bengtsson's horse Cassal was withdrawn. O'Connor was first reserve after he and Blue Loyd 12 finished just outside the top 35 qualification zone in the third round semi-final. O'Connor and his mount Blue Loyd 12 completed an almost faultless second with one time fault. Switzerland's Steve Guerdat claimed the gold medal with two faultless rounds, leaving Meath-based O'Connor and Gerco Schroder of the Netherlands in joint-second place on one penalty point each. That left O'Connor and Blue Lloyd 12 and Schroder on London in a jump-off on a redesigned course to decide the silver and bronze medal positions. Schroder set a time of 49.79, leaving O'Connor with a fast time to chase. The Meath-based rider set a blistering pace and with just one fence to jump, he looked set to claim the silver medal. However, the duo clipped the final jump, picking up four penalty points and handing silver to Schroder. In 2005 O'Connor was stripped of the gold medal he won at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Click on the link below for a portion of the RTE Olympic coverage on Wednesday night (8th August) of Cian O'Connor's achievement http://youtu.be/A45GXWpnHFY SHOWJUMPINGIRELAND CONGRATULATE CIAN O'CONNOR ShowjumpingIreland would like to congratulate Cian O'Connor on his fantastic performance at the 2012 London Olympics today to take a Bronze Medal. Cian put in a brilliant performance with his horse Blue Loyd 12 to jump a brilliant clear round in the first round and they were so unlucky to miss out on a jump off for Gold when going over the time allowed by just .02 seconds. O'Connor then went forward for a Jump Off for Silver medal against Gerco Schroder and despite having the faster time, they rubbed off the very last fence to take the Bronze Medal. Chairman of ShowjumpingIreland, Christy Murphy congratulated Cian saying; ''This is a wonderful result for Cian and on behalf of everyone in ShowjumpingIreland I would like to congratulate him and Team Ireland Equestrian on winning a Bronze Medal this afternoon. Both Cian and his horse Blue Loyd performed impeccably and they deserved to get a medal today. It is also a great result for Ireland as we have now officially collected our first Medal of the 2012 Games.''