Equestrian at the 1980 Summer Olympics

Equestrian at the 1980 Summer Olympics was represented by six events. All of them, with the exception of the Individual Jumping Grand Prix, were held in the Trade Unions Equestrian Centre, which is situated in the Bitsa Forest Park (southern part of Moscow). Individual Jumping Grand Prix was held in the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium at Luzhniki (south-western part of Moscow). As usual for the equestrian in the Olympics, all events were mixed, i.e. not divided into men’s only events and women’s only events.

Due to the boycott, only eleven nations competed in the equestrian events: Austria, Bulgaria, Guatemala, Finland, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Romania, and the USSR. Therefore, only a few of the top riders in the world competed, including the Italian eventing team and the current European champion in dressage, Austrian Sissy Theurer. India also sent an eventing team, but all four of its riders were eliminated. There were only 68 entries total in the equestrian competition at the 1980 Olympics.

26 riders from seven nations competed over Viatcheslav Kartavski's course, including six teams, none of whom were dominating powers in international show jumping. The course was kept easy, with ideal distances between fences. Only sixteen riders competed in the individual show jumping competition, including one each from Finland and Guatemala. The Guatemalan, Oswaldo Mendaz, finished in fourth place after losing the jump-off for bronze to Mexico’s Joaquin Perez de la Heras. Silver went to Nikolaj Korolkov, finishing with 9.5 penalties, and gold went to Poland’s Jan Kowalczyk, who had a rail in each round.

Of the 14 riders (seven nations) competing in dressage, there was only one top international competitor: 26-year-old Elisabeth Theurer on her Hanoverian Mon Cheri. She finished the Grand Prix an astonishing 35 points ahead of the second place finisher Yuri Kovshov, and 82 points ahead of the third place winner Viktor Ugriumov. She spread this margin even further in the Grand Prix Special, to 90 points ahead of silver and 136 points ahead of bronze. However, her win was not marred by controversy, and the Austrian National Equestrian Federation's President resigned after her decision to compete.

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