Masked up and locked down: Pippa Roome (right) with H&H colleagues Polly Bryan and Peter Nixon in Tokyo. The Paris Olympics will give attendees a whole new sense of freedom.
Pippa Roome on Olympic freedom and British team members’ preparations for Paris 2024
By the time you read this, I’ll be in Paris, covering my third Olympics as an accredited journalist, alongside fellow H&H staffer Martha Terry and photographer Peter Nixon.
I spoke to all the British team event riders a couple of weeks ago and something Ros Canter said really struck a chord: “Tokyo was so different because of Covid. I keep imagining competing at the Olympics with empty stands and I think I might get a shock as it’ll be so different.”
I realised as she said it that I’m the same – the fact there will be crowds in Paris hadn’t really occurred to me.
I worked three Olympics for H&H at home before my first on the inside, in 2016. Because of security concerns, Rio was also quite a locked-down Games – we lived on an army base encircled with barbed wire and could only leave it in official buses or approved taxis. Wandering out to buy a croissant or choose a restaurant during an Olympics is an alien idea to me.
In Japan, I lived on Uber Eats at my laptop for three weeks. There are plenty of mealtimes at any big event when as a reporter for a brand with an ever-hungry website, magazine and podcast, you need to be working. But the fact that even when the schedule allowed we couldn’t unwind over lunch or dinner with colleagues contributed to the intensity.
It was only after getting home that I clocked what huge pressure I’d felt under. While I was trying to produce my best work, no one expected me to win a gold medal, so I can only imagine what it was like for the riders.
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Ros was also fascinating on how she copes mentally in these final weeks: “I like to think of it as work – I’m employed to do this job, employed in the World Class system to compete at the Olympics. Like anyone in any other job, my job is to do my best for them. That takes the emotion out of it a little bit and keeps me on track.”
Ros Canter’s thoughts at Tokyo: “Could I do this?”
I was also intrigued by Ros’s insight on being the alternate, a position she took in Tokyo and one that Yasmin Ingham holds for the Brits this time. It’s different to being a reserve who knows, once the event has started, they won’t compete, because the Olympic eventing format means you can be substituted for any phase.
“I went through phases where I felt completely ready to perform and felt deflated when I didn’t,” remembered Ros. “Then on cross-country morning, I remember thinking, ‘If I got a call to say I was up, am I in the zone? Have I walked the course well enough? Could I do this?’ I was excited when the team won gold, but incredibly sad at the same time.
“It was hard to find your own space in Tokyo as we were limited in where we could go. It will hopefully be easier for the alternate rider in Paris to take themselves away if they need a break and I think that will be a healthier situation.”
Laura Collett says: “Stick to the system”
You can read my interviews with all four British riders via the links below, but to pick one more highlight, Laura Collett was interesting on her learnings from past championships.
“In Tokyo, I made mistakes overdoing things, overtraining, and I’m aware of not making the same mistake. It’s sticking to the system and trusting what we’ve done so far has been good enough,” she said, aware particularly that she didn’t produce her best dressage test with London 52 in Japan.
At the worlds in 2022, Laura had a run-out across country. Reflecting on that, she said: “We’ll cross-country school the week before Paris to make sure he’s not going into it too fresh. At the worlds, we tried to wrap him up too much, so he came out like a raging bull.”
No raging bulls this time, thank you – and the best of British luck to all the 327 Team GB athletes as we head into the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
