Fry wins bronze to continue GB equestrian success

Lottie Fry continued Great Britain’s equestrian medal success at the Paris Olympics with bronze in the individual dressage.

On Glamourdale, she scored 88.971% as Germany’s Jessica von Bredow-Werndl successfully defended her title.

Fellow German Isabell Werth, competing at her seventh Games, took silver.

It marks a third Olympic medal for 28-year-old Fry, who made her debut in Tokyo three years ago and also has two team bronzes.

The second of those came on Saturday, alongside team-mates Carl Hester and Becky Moody.

Hester and Moody placed sixth and eighth respectively in Sunday’s final.

It is a fifth equestrian medal for Team GB at the picturesque Chateau de Versailles, after team eventing and jumping golds, plus Laura Collett’s individual eventing bronze.

World champion Fry, who grew up near Driffield in Yorkshire but now lives and trains in the Netherlands, qualified for the final in fourth place with a score of 78.913%.

With a “best of British with a French twang” soundtrack featuring Queen, the Beatles and the national anthems of Britain and France, she bettered that score in Sunday’s medal performance.

Her score put her top of the standings with three riders to come, and while Werth and then Von Bredow-Werndl moved ahead – the latter with a score of 90.093% – Denmark’s Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour could only place fifth to confirm the British medal.

Fry’s late mother, Laura, competed alongside Hester at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Hester, appearing at his seventh Games, scored 85.161% on Fame while Moody, riding Jagerbomb, achieved 84.357% at her maiden Olympics after replacing Charlotte Dujardin in the squad.

Fry’s medal is GB’s fifth in Olympic individual dressage. Three of those – including gold in London and Rio – belong to Dujardin, who withdrew on the eve of the Games and was later provisionally suspended by equestrian’s world governing body for “excessively” whipping a horse.