United States Eventing Association

U.S. Olympic Eventing in Numbers

We’re nearly there! Olympic mania has taken over the world, and we’re in the final countdown to the Olympic eventing competition in Tokyo, which starts with the first horse inspection on Thursday. Our USA riders are raring to go, but let’s remind ourselves of the history that precedes them. Just how well has the US team done in past Olympics?

Our friends at EquiRatings have dug out some fascinating stats…

Since 1964, the USA has won more individual eventing medals than any other nation - 9.

Here’s how they break down:

Gold: Tad Coffin (Bally-Cor) 1976; David O’Connor (Custom Made) 2000

Silver: Michael Plumb (Better & Better) 1976; Karen Stives (Ben Arthur) 1984; Kim Severson (Winsome Adante) 2004; Gina Miles (McKinlaigh) 2008

Bronze: Michael Page (Foster) 1968; Kerry Millikin (Out And About) 1996; Philip Dutton (Mighty Nice) 2016

The USA has also won the second-highest number of team eventing medals since 1964 - 8 (tied with Great Britain, also with 8). Only Germany has more (9).

This is the list:

1964 (Tokyo): silver

1968 (Mexico City): silver

1972 (Munich): silver

1976 (Montreal): gold

1984 (Los Angeles): gold

1996 (Atlanta): silver

2000 (Sydney): bronze

2004 (Athens): bronze

The great David O’Connor - winner of the individual gold medal at Sydney 2000 aboard Custom Made - holds the record for the best-ever eventing dressage score at the Olympics: 19.3 (when converted to the current scoring system). He and Custom Made went on to win that gold medal on the lowest ever eventing finishing score at an Olympics: 23.3 (when converted to the current scoring system).

Only twice has the leader after dressage at the Olympics held on to their position at the top of the leaderboard to win the gold medal: Sir Mark Todd did it in Seoul in 1988 on Charisma and David O’Connor followed him in 2000.

In Athens, the US team won the bronze medal and achieved the nation’s lowest team finishing score since 1980: 101.1.

One of the Tokyo 2020 team members, Phillip Dutton, has the best Olympic cross-country record of any rider since 1980 with a perfect 5 cross-country clears from 5 Olympic cross-country attempts. David O’Connor also has a 100% record at the Olympics with 4 from 4.