Olympic record for Dujardin (From Ledbury Reporter)

Olympic record for Dujardin

4:00pm Friday 3rd August 2012 in Sport

NEWENT’s Charlotte Dujardin put Great Britain in pole position for dressage gold at London 2012 by setting a new Olympic record.

The 26-year-old scored 83.66 per cent on Valegro to samsh the effort of Germany’s Kristina Sprehe that had stood for just hours at Greenwich Park.

It was only 0.42 per cent off matching Holland’s Edward Gal and Totilas’ world record set at the 2009 European Championships in Windsor.

A capacity 23,000 audience roared its approval as Dujardin set the competition alight to help GB, who also include fellow Newent-based rider Carl Hester and Laura Bechtolsheimer, to the top of the team standings ahead of the next action on Tuesday.

Barely 20 months ago, Dujardin had never performed a grand prix test, but now she is the Olympic record holder and also holds the grand prix special world record, set in Germany last April.

“It is an amazing opportunity to ride here, and I really wanted to enjoy it,” she said.

“I would hated to have gone in there, put too much pressure on myself and made mistakes.

“I just wanted to go in and do what I do normally and have fun. Having the crowd behind me like that was amazing.

“I was hoping for an 80 per cent, so to come to the Olympics and smash that is a little bit crazy, but I had such fun.”