The individual show jumping at the 1928 Summer Olympics took place on 12 August 1928 at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. Scores from the individual competition were summed to give results in the team competition. There were 46 competitors from 16 nations. Each nation could send a team of three riders; 15 nations did so, while Japan had a single rider. The event was won by František Ventura of Czechoslovakia, the nation's first medal in individual jumping. France earned its first medal in the event since 1912 with Pierre Bertran de Balanda's silver. Charles-Gustave Kuhn took bronze, putting Switzerland on the podium for the second consecutive Games.
Background
This was the fifth appearance of the event, which had first been held at the 1900 Summer Olympics and has been held at every Summer Olympics at which equestrian sports have been featured (that is, excluding 1896, 1904, and 1908). It is the oldest event on the current programme, the only one that was held in 1900.
Three of the top 10 riders from the 1924 competition returned: gold medalist Alphonse Gemuseus of Switzerland, silver medalist (and 1920 gold medalist) Tommaso Lequio di Assaba of Italy, and ninth-place finisher José Álvarez de Bohórquez of Spain.
Argentina, Hungary, Japan, and the Netherlands each made their debut in the event. Belgium and France both competed for the fifth time, the only nations to have competed at each appearance of the event to that point.
Competition format
"The obstacles with number 16 as a maximum, the minimum height being 1 m. 25, and the maximum height 1 m. 40 (4’ to 4’ 9”). The canter must be free and at a speed of 400 m. (43 yds.) a minute. The timekeeper shall not take into account greater speed, but on the other hand a lower speed shall be penalised by 0.25 of a point per second over the time allowed. Grazing, displacing or touching the obstacles shall not be taken into account." The course was 720 metres long.
Ties for medal position were broken with re-rides, while all other ties were broken by time.
Schedule
The first round was interrupted by rain and had to be continued on the second day.
Date Time Round Sunday, 12 August 1928 14:00 Final
Results
The course was relatively easy, with seven riders able to finish with no faults. Three of them repeated the feat in the first re-ride, guaranteeing those riders the medals and requiring a second re-ride to determine who would receive which medal. In the second re-ride, some obstacles were raised to 1.60 metres in height to increase the difficulty.
Source: Official results; De Wael
RankRiderNationHorseTimeFaults1st re-ride2nd re-ride František VenturaEliot1:34000 Pierre Bertran de BalandaPapillon1:21002 Charles-Gustave KuhnPepita1:38004 4Kazimierz GzowskiMylord1:3302 – 5José NavarroZapatazo1:3602 – 6Karl HansenGerold1:3902 – 7Francesco ForquetCapinera1:330 – 8Alphonse GemuseusLucette1:272– 9Carl BjörnstjernaKornett1:302– 10José ÁlvarezZalamero1:332– 11Eduard KrügerDonauwelle1:332– 12Julio GarcíaRevistade1:372– 13Kazimierz SzoslandAlli1:402– 14Richard SahlaCorreggio1:154– 15Luís Ivens FerrazMarco Visconti1:264– 16Hélder MartinsAvro1:314– 17Jacques Couderc de FonlongueValangerville1:344– 18Harry ChamberlinNigra1:344– 19José de AlbuquerqueHebraico1:424– 20Michał AntoniewiczReadglet1:316– 21Alessandro Bettoni CazzagoAladino1:386– 22Knut GyslerSans Peur1:386– 23Frank CarrMiss America1:386– 24Tommaso Lequio di AssabaTrebecco1:486– 25Ernst HallbergLoke1:318– 26Pierre ClavéLe Trouvère1:338– 27Gerard de KruijffPreten1:418– 28Carl Friedrich von Langen-ParowFalkner1:428– 29Antonius ColenbranderGaga1:468– 30Charles LabouchereCopain1:4410– 31Lajos von MalanottiIbolya III1:2812– 32Anton KlavenessBarrabas1:3512– 33Adolphus RoffeFairfax2:0412– 34Amabrio del VillarTalán-Talán1:4912– 35Gaston MesmaekersAs de Pique1:3714– 36Bjart OrdingFram I1:3016– 37Pierre de MuraltNotas1:4816– 38Jacques MisonneKeepsake2:0416– 39Antal von KányaGólya1:3320– 40Raúl AntoliTurbion1:4520– 41Josef RabasDaghestan2:1422– 42Víctor FernándezSilencio1:2726– 43Kálmán Cseh von Szent-KatolnaBeni1:5630– 44Baudoin De BrabandèreMiss América2:2934– —Shigetomo YoshidaKyuzan —Rudolf PoplerDenk —
References