Major shakeup for Canada’s Olympic dressage team

Chris Von Martels and Eclips will be competing at the Paris Olympics (Photo: Susan J Stickle)

As the athletes prepare for tonight’s opening ceremonies, Equestrian Canada announced today several significant changes affecting the Olympic dressage team.

Unfortunately for Jill Irving, Delacroix has been deemed unfit to compete and the decision was made in the best interest of the horse to withdraw him from competition. They will be replaced with the earlier named travelling reserve pair athlete of Chris Von Martels and Eclips, who represented Canada at the Tokyo Olympics.

With second reserve Ariana Chia and Guateque IV previously declining to travel to the pre-Games staging camp, and logistical challenges prohibiting the sixth-ranked Denielle Gallagher and Come Back de Massa to arrive in France in time for competition, the seventh-ranked rider horse combination Jill Irving and Genesis have been named as traveling alternates and will join the team in Paris.

In other news, Equestrian Canada also announced that Olympian Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu will assume the roles of Team Chef d’Equipe and Team Manager to support Team Canada riders on the ground. Due to personal reasons, the original Team Chef d’Equipe and Team Manager Christine Peters stepped back from those roles.

The Canadian team is settling into their home base near Versailles and making their final preparations before the first day of Grand Prix competition on Monday. I’ll be there in person and can’t wait to cheer our riders on. Go Canada!






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