Olympics equestrian dressage individual final results: August 15

Charlotte Dujardin riding Valegro repeated Olympic gold in the Rio dressage individual final competition. Laura Graves on Verdades was the highest placed Team U.S.A. individual at fourth.

Charlotte Dujardin won the Olympic dressage individual gold Monday at Deodoro Olympic Park. The Rio Olympics dressage individual gold medal is Dujardin’s second, following her victory in the 2012 London Games. Germany accounted for the silver and bronze medals earned by Isabell Werth and Kristina Broring-Sprehe, respectively.

At the completion of Dujardin’s dressage freestyle test, there was no doubt that nothing less than another rider’s miracle could deny her the gold individual medal. With Valegro, her mount in this and the London Games, Dujardin rode a test that joined athleticism and elegance with a syncopated beat. Their personal best.

Silver and bronze medal winners

In addition to her dressage individual silver medal at the Rio Olympics, Isabell Werth has one gold individual from the 1996 Atlanta Games and three silvers from Hong Kong, Sydney and Barcelona. Werth also won a 2016 Olympics team dressage gold and team golds from Barcelona, Sydney, Atlanta and Hong Kong.

Kristina Broring-Sprehe‘s bronze medal reflects her successful partnership with her black Hanoverian stallion Desperados. She was eight individually in the London Olympics and was a member of the German silver medal team. Broring-Sprehe was also a member of the Rio Olympic gold medal German team.

Next: Water polo results from the Rio Games

Dujardin before Rio

Before the Games, Sam Knight wrote “The Duo That Dominates Dressage” for The New Yorker, detailing Dujardin’s path to the apex of Grand Prix freestyle dressage:

"Later that year (2014), Dujardin devised a new freestyle for Valegro. She made the floor plan as difficult as she could imagine, opening with a half-pass in trot that moved into a half-pass in passage, followed by a combined piaffe and pirouette and straight into another phase of passage. She rode an extended canter into a double pirouette, and set the test to music from “How to Train Your Dragon.” Dujardin and Valegro performed the routine for the first time at the Olympia horse show, in London, that December. Together, they broke the last of Totilas’s world records. “I literally did the final bit with tears rolling down my face, because he is the sort of horse that gives you everything,” Dujardin said. “He gives you everything, and I can feel the partnership and the connection. He is, like, with me.”"

"Dujardin has decided to keep her record-breaking floor plan, but she had asked her composer, Tom Hunt, to arrange a new Brazilian-themed score."