Cian O'Connor is an Irish equestrian who competes in show jumping. He has competed at three Olympic Games, four World Championships and six European Championships. O'Connor was stripped of the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics when his horse was found to have a banned substance in its system.
The International Federation for Equestrian Sports is the international governing body of equestrian sports. The FEI headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The individual show jumping event, part of the equestrian program at the 2004 Summer Olympics, was held from 22 to 27 August 2004 in the Olympic Equestrian Centre on the outskirts of Markopoulo in the Attica region of Greece. Like all other equestrian events, the jumping competition was mixed gender, with both male and female athletes competing in the same division. There were 77 competitors from 27 nations. Each nation could send up to 4 riders. Cian O'Connor of Ireland initially received the gold medal, but that medal was stripped from him due to doping. After his disqualification, the event was won by Rodrigo Pessoa of Brazil, the nation's first medal in individual jumping. Silver went to Chris Kappler of the United States, with bronze to Marco Kutscher of Germany.
Equestrian sports were first included in the Olympic Games in the Summer Olympics of 1900 in Paris. They were again included in 1912, and have been included in every subsequent edition of the Games. Currently, the Olympic equestrian disciplines are dressage, eventing, and show jumping. In each discipline, both individual and team medals are awarded. Since the XV Olympiad in Helsinki in 1952, women and men compete on equal terms.
Isabell Werth is a German equestrian and world champion in dressage who competed in the Olympics six times winning twelve medals, seven of them gold. With this she beat Aladar Gerevich, Hungarian fencer and Mark Todd of New Zealand, record for the most years between first and last Olympic medals. She holds the record for the most Olympic medals won by any equestrian athlete.
Michael Whitaker is a British Olympic equestrian rider, who competes in the sport of show jumping. He was ranked 5th by the British Showjumping Association in March 2014.
Eric Lamaze is a Canadian retired showjumper and Olympic champion. He won individual gold and team silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, riding his famed horse Hickstead. Lamaze has won three Olympic medals, as well as four Pan American Games medals and one World Equestrian Games bronze. He is considered one of Canada's best showjumpers.
Steve Guerdat is a Swiss equestrian who competes in the sport of show jumping.
Laura Tomlinson MBE is a German-British dressage rider competing at Olympic level. As of 30 June 2012 the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) ranked her 3rd in the world riding Mistral Højris and 36th on Andretti H. In that year, Tomlinson, riding Mistral Højris under her maiden name of Laura Bechtolsheimer, won two medals in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London; gold for Great Britain in the team dressage with Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, the first ever Olympic team gold in the discipline for her country, and bronze in the individual dressage behind gold medalist and compatriot Dujardin.
Hugh Thomas is a British former Olympic equestrian rider, technical delegate, course designer and event organiser.
Charlotte Susan Jane Dujardin is a British dressage rider, equestrian and writer. A multiple World and Olympic champion, Dujardin has been described as the dominant dressage rider of her era. She held the complete set of available individual elite dressage titles at one point: the individual Olympic freestyle, World freestyle and Grand Prix Special, World Cup individual dressage and European freestyle, and Grand Prix Special titles. Dujardin was the first rider to hold this complete set of titles at the same time.
Christopher "Burto" Burton is an Australian equestrian. He was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Olympics in equestrian eventing.
The equestrian events at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were held between 6 and 19 August at National Equestrian Center in Deodoro. Medals were awarded in three disciplines for both individual and team competitions.
The 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games were held in Mill Spring, North Carolina, U.S. at the Tryon International Equestrian Center, from September 11 to September 23, 2018. It was the eighth edition of the games, which are held every four years and run by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI). This was the second time that North America hosted the Games, the previous time being in 2010, also in the United States.
Belgium competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. Since the nation's official debut in 1900, Belgian athletes had appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games, with the exception of the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. The Belgian team consisted of 108 athletes, 70 men and 38 women, across nineteen sports.
Equestrian events at the 2016 Summer Paralympics consist of 11 dressage events, ten for individual riders across five classes, and a single mixed team, mixed category event. The competitions were held in the Olympic Equestrian Centre in Rio, in September 2016.
Astier Nicolas is a French equestrian. He represented his country at the 2016 Summer Olympics, where he won the gold medal in the team eventing and the silver in the individual eventing.
Oliver David Townend is a British eventing rider competing at the international three-day level. His wins include team gold at the 2007, 2009 and 2017 European Championships and wins at Badminton Horse Trials, Burghley Horse Trials, and the Kentucky Three Day Event. He also represented Britain at the World Equestrian Games in 2006 and 2014. He was the Event Rider Masters series champion in 2016. He has been eventing's world number one twice, in 2009 and again in 2018, and British number one seven times since 2009.
Leandro Aparecido da Silva is a Brazilian equestrian. He competed in the individual dressage event at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2020, his license was suspended by Sociedad Hipica Paulista, and he was put under investigation by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports, after a videos of Silva and his son mistreating ponies surfaced on the internet.
Richard Rankin Fellers is an American former Olympic equestrian and horse trainer. In 2023 he pled guilty to sexually abusing one of his students when she was 17. According to the Washington County, Oregon district attorney, he will serve 30 months in state prison concurrently with a four year federal sentence.
