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Fiona Bigwood (born 24 April 1976) is a British dressage rider and winner of a silver medal in the team dressage event at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
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| Born | 24 April 1976 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Fiona Bigwood (born 24 April 1976) is a British dressage rider and winner of a silver medal in the team dressage event at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Bigwood was born on 24 April 1976. [1] By the time she was 10, Bigwood rode Tanya Larrigan's old Grand Prix horse Salute on lease. She soon competed at the 1993 Junior European Championships and the Young Rider European Championships. [2] As a teenager, she trained in Denmark [3] and was educated at Croydon High School. [4]
In 1997, Bigwood became the youngest British rider to be selected for a Senior European Championships. [5] In the same year, she won the British National Elementary title with Afrikka and was shortlisted for the 1998 World Equestrian Games. [3] Afterwards, she competed at the 2010 World Equestrian Games and four European Dressage Championships (1999, 2005, 2007 and 2015). [5] In 2014, she suffered a concussion after a fall while riding. As a result of her injury, Bigwood experiences double vision, which means that she wears an eye patch while riding. [6]
Upon returning to competitions, Bigwood earned a silver medal for Great Britain in the team dressage event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. [7] However, she would later sell her silver medal-winning horse "Atterupgaards Orthilia" to Danish rider Agnete Kirk Thinggaard. [8]
She was married with three children; her ex-husband, Anders Dahl, is also a dressage rider. [9]
In 2016, Bigwood and her ex-husband relocated from Bourne Hill House in Horsham in West Sussex to Brantridge Park, where she is in the process of establishing a new world-class equestrian centre. [10]
Theodora Elisabeth Gerarda "Anky" van Grunsven is a Dutch dressage champion who is the only rider to record three successive Olympic wins in the same event. Along with her Olympic successes, she has won numerous medals at the World Equestrian Games (WEG), and is the only rider to have competed at every WEG since they began in 1990. Between 1990 and 2006, she competed at the Games in dressage, but in 2010 she was named as part of the Dutch reining team, marking a major change in discipline.
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Michael Jung is a German equestrian who competes in eventing and show jumping. A three-time Olympic gold medallist, he won individual and team gold at the 2012 London Olympics, followed by individual gold and team silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He was inducted into the Eventing Rider Association Hall of Fame in 2013, and in 2016 he became only the second rider in history to win the Grand Slam of Eventing.
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