[/caption]Aachen, Germany, August 27, 2006 -- Sometimes people do get what they deserve, and it finally happened to eventer Amy Tryon today at the World Equestrian Games (WEG), where she moved up from seventh place to claim the individual bronze medal after putting in a perfect show jumping trip.
Often unsung, Amy has been a true team player, always just a step or two outside of the spotlight. She's gotten a bunch of medals, including the gold at the 2002 WEG, but they were all team awards.
This one was just for her. True to form, however, she said she missed her teammates and felt lonely at the medal ceremony after they had one too many rails down and lost the team bronze to Australia by a mere 8/10ths of a point.
Listen:
Amy Tryon's feelings on winning an individual medal.
Amy was the only American who could manage a clear trip over Frank Rothenberger's long and demanding course that took its toll on even such top riders as Bettina Hoy, who dropped out of the silver medal position with two rails dislodged by Ringwood Cockatoo, but that didn't affect Germany's team standing.
The home nation was favored for the team gold won by the U.S. at the 2002 WEG, and it didn't disappoint its many supporters in the main stadium, who got to hear yet another rendition of the German anthem. Germany was 24 penalties ahead of silver medal Great Britain, which in turn was 17.3 in front of Australia.
Mark Phillips, the U.S. coach, noted that for his squad, losing by less than one penalty point is "tough, really really tough."
"I'd rather get beaten by 20 or 30 marks (penalty points) because then you've been beaten by truly a better outfit on the day," said Mark, as the German national anthem played (again) in the background. "I'm starting to think it's their Muzak."
"You've got a lot of competitive riders here and young athletes. They will be going home and saying, 'Where could I have saved one mark in this competition?'" he said. "Trust me, all of them will have one place where they could have done, and they'll all be beating themselves up because they could have made the difference."
Mark, as he has been recently, is not cheery about our prospects in other championships if things stay as they are.
"When you look toward Lexington 2010 (the next WEG) and London 2012 (the Olympics); when you see the horses we've got at the moment, our cupboard is bare," he warned. "And when you see the standard of some of the horses here and see what we've got, the USA has got to get shopping big time if Lexington 2010 is not going to be a huge disappointment."
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- Individual eventing medalists Clayton Fredericks, Zara Phillips and Amy Tryon are smiling in the rain
- © Nancy Jaffer 2006
But let's enjoy the moment, Mark. Someone who is very special got an individual bronze. Amy, the pathfinder for the team here who finished on her dressage score of 50.7, is a humble soul who doesn't like to talk about what she's done. Recently retired as a firefighter, she used to bank vacation by working holidays for the others in her crew so she could get blocks of time to take off for competition.
I saw her husband, Greg, after the medal presentation and asked for his view of what happened today.
"It's fairly amazing," he told me. "This is the little horse that could. Today was kind of strangely calm, she was calm and he was calm and they went out and did their jobs. We were disappointed in the team score. We wish we'd done better but I know she's excited that Poggi's by himself now. It brings tears to my eyes when I talk about him."
During the medal ceremonies, it poured rain, but then the sun came out. I draw a parallel between sorrow over the loss of the team medal and joy that Amy finally was recognized in a big way.
Although the team would have liked to take home a medal, Mark was happy that fourth place qualifies the U.S. to compete in the 2008 Olympics.
"Now Poggi doesn't have to go to Brazil," said Amy, referring to the Pan American Games in 2007, the last qualifier for the Hong Kong Olympics in 2008.
