British-based Swede Sofia Sjöborg is, at 26, already one of life’s over-achievers. Sofia is making her Olympic debut, having already contested two Europeans and a World Championship, and was the first from the Swedish team to enter the Olympic eventing dressage arena in Paris.
Back home, in Gloucestershire, Sofia juggles a top-flight eventing career with studying for a masters degree in mechanical and electrical engineering. Next year is her fourth and final year at uni, after which she may try to combine the two strands of her career.
“There are a lot of things we use, like water treadmills, which are quite engineering-based,” says Sofia. “There aren’t many engineers who are riders in the sport, so I could offer a different perspective.”
Sofia took three deferred years and spent the time training with Michael Jung in Germany, but is now based with British dressage Olympian Laura Tomlinson, and studying at Bath University.
“Bath is very good, they have a sports programme and I’m a sports scholar so they help a lot with the deadlines. I can fit the eventing around my exams and projects, but it works well round the season.”
Sofia Sjöborg: “overwhelmed” to be at Paris Games
Sofia let the tears flow after her final halt in the Versailles stadium, where she scored 33.3 on her long-time partner Bryjamolga VH Marienshof Z, a 13-year-old by Bamako De Muze.
“You’ve worked for so long just to get here, I was just a bit overwhelmed, so tears, tears, tears!” she says. “It’s different to the other championships. I’ve seen the horse a lot less, there’s a lot more media. So I had to take some time this morning to get into the competition mindset. And the arena – you ride in there and think ‘whoah’, there’s a lot of noise. My mare does get hot, and she was a little nervous when we went in, but managed to focus.
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“I’ve had her since the end of her four-year-old year, done all her events with her. She is a gritty trier. She wouldn’t find dressage easy, although she has a lot of ability in this phase. But what makes her so good at cross-country is she’s so forward thinking. The more you collect her it’s like a boiler, she has to let off steam!”
And so Sofia is looking forward to the next phase.
“The course looks fun,” she says. “There are quite a few questions at the end, with slightly blind turns, like in the final water they see the fence [23bc, Etoile Royale Waters] quite late, and the final combination [25 and 26, Cornelian Dilemma] if your horse is mentally tired. But the course looks fair and good for the horses. You’ll have to ride well and chase the time.”
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Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
