THE CANADIAN PRESS
HONG KONG — Ian Millar has competed in more Olympic Games than almost any other athlete. Now he has the medal to go with the memories.
Canada won silver in Olympic equestrian team show jumping Monday night, finishing second to the U.S. in a timed jump-off.
Millar, 61, is riding in his ninth Games, tying him for the most ever Olympic appearances by an individual athlete, but this is his first medal.
"I remember back in the early 70s when I had a disastrous Grand Prix, my wife, Lynn, said to me, `Don’t worry, you’re going to be a late bloomer.’ That’s what she said to me and I’ve always held that thought," said Millar. "And so the Olympics don’t go well and I’d say, `Lynn said I’m a late bloomer, I’ll go to the next one.’ And sure enough, guess what happened? I bloomed."
Sadly, Millar lost wife Lynn to cancer in March.
Jill Henselwood of Oxford Mills, Ont., Eric Lamaze of Schomberg, Ont., and Mac Cone of King City, Ont., helped Millar win his first piece of Olympic hardware.
Millar is the oldest show jumper to participate in the Olympics — although 67-year-old Japanese rider Hiroshi Hoketsu is in Beijing for the dressage competition — and the seventh-oldest medal winner in Olympic Games history.
According to the IOC, the oldest medallist was 72-year-old Oscar Swahn of Sweden, who won a silver in 1920 in Antwerp in the Running Deer double shot team event. Twelve years earlier, Ireland’s Colonel Joshua (Jerry) Millner won the free rifle event at the age of 61, and he remains the oldest winner of an individual Olympic event in any sport.
Millar said that he aims to ride at the London Olympics when he’s 65.
"Age does not matter unless it matters to you," said the resident of Perth, Ont.
Millar, riding as the anchor for Canada, moved his team into a position to win with a clear round on In Style and a team total of 20 faults.
The U.S. responded with a four-fault round from U.S. anchor Beezie Madden on Authentic, sending the two teams into a jump-off.
The U.S. riders had three clean rounds in the jump-off, while Henselwood had four faults before Lamaze’s clean performance. Since Canada was down a rider because Cone had to withdraw due to a minor injury to his horse Ole, this left them with no chance to catch the Americans.
Norway won bronze with 27 faults.
`We are a small country in terms of the sport," said Millar. "This is an incredible achievement. The support we have all year motivates us. Thank you Canada! This medal is for you as much as it is for us."
When a 25-year-old Millar went to his first Games in Munich in 1972, Richard Nixon was running for a second term as president of the United States amid the early rumblings of Watergate, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was Canada’s prime minister and "The Godfather" had hit the theatres earlier that year.
The 2008 Olympics would have been a record-setting 10th for the Halifax-born Millar had Canada not boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow.
The closest Millar has come to the Olympic podium was fourth in the team events in both the 1984 and 1988 Games, when he rode the iconic horse Big Ben.
At the 2000 Games in Sydney, he was fourth heading into the final of the individual event aboard Dorincord, but finished 13th. He competed in those Games with a broken bone in his hand.
Ole was injured during the first round of team jumping on Sunday, so Canada’s riders went into Monday’s second round knowing they had no drop score as a fall-back.
"After last night, Ole was sore," said Cone. "We tried all day today to figure it out, but we couldn’t."
Henselwood and Millar responded to the difficult situation with clear rounds, while Eric Lamaze had only four faults on Hickstead, to move Canada into a tie with the U.S.
"This is incredible," Henselwood said, "but I wish we had a gold."
Lamaze said that team unity helped them overcome the rider deficit.
You do what you can," said Lamaze. "We’ve pulled it together, and we’re a good team."
Canada finished the first round of the team competition Sunday night tied for fourth with 16 faults. Lamaze went clean, while Millar had one fence down, Cone three fences down, and Henselwood had the team’s drop score with 18.
The U.S. and Switzerland were tied for first after the first round with 12 faults.
Jumping powerhouse Germany, heavily favoured to win a medal, was never a factor in the competition and finished fifth on Monday with 34 faults.
The team competition also served as a qualifying competition for the individual competition, which will be held Thursday. The top 35 riders after the team competition will go forward for individual medals, including Lamaze, Millar and Henselwood.
In the team competition, four riders compete for each team with the best three rounds to count. When a fence is knocked down, the horse steps in the water jump or refuses a fence, it counts four faults. There are also penalties for exceeding the time limit.
The equestrian events are being held in Hong Kong instead of in Beijing due to quarantine restrictions in mainland China.
