Germany won the gold medal for the team dressage in this year's Olympic Games in China, cinched by a solid performance by Isabell Werth. The Dutch settled for the silver, and Denmark shared the medal podium with its European neighbors holding their bronze medals.

The US was unable to secure a medal in large part due to the poor ride by Debbie McDonald on Brentina. At first impression it looked as if Brentina was lame but Debbie was very apologetic to her team mates and the US public on her blog stating that Brentina was not lame, but in fact was 'terrified by something.'  Courtney King (USA) had a very respectable ride for her Olympic debut aboard Mythilus, scoring just under Steffen Peters (USA). Portugal was eliminated due to the inability of one rider to complete the test- another scared horse it seemed.

 

I really wanted to "record" the video of the Olympic dressage rides because I knew from past Olympic Games that the TV coverage would be less than desirable so I planned ahead (at the last minute :-) for the online coverage.  As you may know, the online live broadcasting has been really outstanding if you can get it.  I know those of you that have a slow Internet connection or are victims of a cable company that did not contract for online broadcast rights are not so lucky :-)

 

I decided to "retain an archived personal version" of the competition, which is not super easy.  After working out the technical details with software and hardware upgrades, I have my first day's rides archived for later viewing by Vicki, who was teaching lessons at the time.  I discovered after I finished, that they were putting full unedited videos on the NBC web site of the competition after the live broadcast within hours after the competition was completed. 

 

That is great for all of those that can get to it over the Internet to their their computers, I thought, but I want to be able to watch the dressage competition 10 years from now in my living room on the television (I am a little old fashioned that way I know).  I don't have any idea if the video now on NBC will be available online or where the video files will be in the future.  I don't also do not know if complete videos to purchase will be available, but I now have my own to watch. 

I would say more on the actual performances of the individual horses and the riders from each county but I have not yet watched them all- just some of the headliners.  Hopefully, Vicki and I can watch and put down our thoughts on the various rides in a later posting.  I know she was doing a lot of step counting on pirouettes and zig-zags on what she had seen so far.

One of the nice things about the full video broadcast was not only could you really see the emotional responses of the riders and teams during and after the competition, you could also hear the conversations the riders and their families and teams were having after their rides.  It was up close an personal, possibly more so than some realized.  This kind of behind-the-scenes coverage has never been available until now. 

So this is it, the most "televised" dressage Olympics in history and the most blogged about Olympic Games in dressage history.   What will dressage competition at the 2012 Olympics in London be like?  This will be NBC's last games under the current exclusive broadcasting contract and I do not know who will be taking over, but in four years with technology progressing the way it has been, maybe we will be accidentally spooking the horses from home or perhaps you will be lucky enough to be there in person :-)

Next up, the Individual Dressage Final Grand Prix Freestyle competition determines the last individual medallists on Tuesday morning at 7:15 am eastern time.   Who will win the gold, Anky or Isabell?