Indian dressageteam canters to1st Asian Games gold

 

 

INDIA’S dressage team cantered to its first ever Asian Games gold and only second in this discipline in the history of the sport with the quartet of Sudipti Hajela, Divyakriti Singh, Vipul Hriday Chheda and Anush Agarwalla living up to expectations, here on Tuesday. The Indian quartet was performing well in the selection trials as their scores either matched or were better than the Asian Games medal winners from the previous editions. It was more about the colour of medal they would win and they grabbed the top place on the podium by aggregating 209.205 percentage points, leaving behind China (204.882 %) and Hong Kong (204.852%). The last time the sport of equestrian contributed to India’s Asian Games tally was in 1986 when the country won a dressage bronze.

 

In the 1982 edition in New Delhi, the Indian team had grabbed three gold medals in Eventing and Tent Pegging competitions. Raghubir Singh had won a gold in individual Eventing in 1982 and then added another yellow metal in Team Eventing alongside Ghulam Mohammed Khan, Bishal Singh and Milkha Singh. Rupinder Singh Brar won the third gold medal in individual tent pegging. In dressage, the horse and rider are judged on how they perform a series of movements. Each movement is marked out of 10 (from 0 to 10). Each rider gets an overall score and from there, a percentage is worked out. The rider with the highest percentage is the winner of his class. Top three scorers in a team are counted to determine the winner. The Indian team is an interesting mixture of riders. The 21-year-old Sudipti, the youngest of the quartet, was born in Indore and currently trains at Pamfou in France. She beganhorseridingatthe age of six as a hobby but latertook it seriously as a sport ontheinsistenceofherfather.

 

The name of her horse is Chinski. The 23-year-old Divyakriti, hailing from Jaipur, took to horse riding when she was in the seventh grade at the famous Mayo CollegeGirlsSchoolinAjmer. She was the equestrian captainofherschool.Shedidher graduation in Delhi’s Jesus and Mary College. In 2020, she moved to Europefortrainingasequestrianinfrastructure is notthe best in India. She was training at Hagen ATW in Germany before the Asian Games. She rides Adrenalin Firfod.Hailing from Mumbai, the25-year-oldVipul,a business management degree holder from University of London, also began horseridingata youngage.Since2013, he began training with top foreign players in Europe. Interestingly, he began work to startatop class riding facility and first breeding programme for dressage horses in the country. He rides Chemxpro Emerald. The 23-year-old Anush hails from Kolkata and he is also currently based in Borchen in Germany. He developed his passion for horseridingafterhisparents tookhimtoa clubinKolkata. He soon began having horse riding lessons at the age of eight.Afterhavingdifficulties in findingacoach, he left India in 2017 and moved to Germany. He became the first male dressage rider from India to compete at the world championshipsatthe2022edition in Herning, Denmark. His horse’s name is Etro.