Olympics
August 21, 2008 12:14 PM
John Cudmore, Staff Writer
Now Eric Lamaze is good as gold.
Canada, too, when it comes to individual equestrian show jumping.
The 40-year-old Schomberg resident turned in his third straight clean ride in a jump-off to edge Sweden's Rolf-Goran Bengtsson in a two-rider showdown Thursday night to win the gold medal in the Beijing Olympics individual equestrian show jumping event in Hong Kong.
It is Canada's first gold medal in individual show jumping and first of any colour in the event since Michel Vaillancourt won a silver medal in 1976 at the Montreal Games.
In topping the 34-competitor field, the Montreal-born Lamaze and his mount, Hickstead, are also Canada's first double medallist at these Olympics following a silver medal performance earlier this week in the team show jumping competition.
In that competition, Lamaze combined with Ian Millar and Jill Henselwood in a jumpoff against the United States only to finish with one fault. Mac Cone of King City was also a member of the four-rider team but his mount, Ole, was injured during the first day of the two-day competition.