The UK's good start is also in the team events, where Australia's record from Beijing 2008 has also been broken. The individual record was held by American David O'Connor, who rode 19.3 in Sydney 2000.

And the good position has not suffered despite the British team losing three-time medallist Charlotte Dujardin this week after a PETA complaint following the release of a video of her whipping a horse. Other allegations involve a Brazilian rider.
Equestrian athletes Laura Collett and Tom McEwen start the defence of the team eventing title GB won at Tokyo 2020, the first in 49 years, joined by Yasmin Ingham or Ros Canter.

The blip in the Briton’s quest for eventing honours was a riding accident at the Tweseldown Horse Trials in July 2013, which almost cost Collett her life.

The then 23-year-old had to be resuscitated five times and suffered a fractured shoulder, two broken ribs, a punctured lung, a lacerated liver, and damage to her kidneys.

Placed in an induced coma for six days, recovery from the injuries progressed, but the loss of sight in her right eye would prove a more challenging long-term issue. “Depth perception was a bit strange,” Collett told the sport’s world governing body, the FEI.

Things could have been worse if Collett had not opted to wear the inflatable jacket that blows up on impact to protect the rider.

Collett felt people thought her elite career was over, which just added to her drive to succeed, getting back on the horse just two weeks after leaving hospital in a tentative return to riding. Tentative, that is, for her family and friends – with no memory of the fall herself, Collett was just happy to be back doing what she loved best.

The Games Organising Committee has selected the Palace of Versailles and its grounds to host the equestrian events of this 33rd modern Olympiad