Equestrianism: Funnell fuels Britain's day of triumph

PIPPA FUNNELL spearheaded a marvellous triple achievement for Britain at the European Three-Day Event Championships here yesterday, when she won the individual title on Supreme Rock and was part of the victorious British team. With Olympic qualification also secure, the mission had been well and truly accomplished.

This was the 30-year-old rider's debut for the senior team. Having come here with the expectation of filling an individual place, Funnell said that she was "in complete shock" at becoming the European champion. She is now the first competitor to win both the Young Rider title - which she took in 1987 - and the senior championship.

In the lead after the dressage and cross-country, Funnell could afford two errors in the final show jumping phase. She was "feeling quite confident" until having the third fence down - "after that I had to tell myself to stay calm and pretend it was just a normal event."

There was no further error. Funnell's entourage - which included Emma Pitt and other members of the syndicate who own Supreme Rock - were therefore able to cheer themselves hoarse. It was also a wonderful occasion for Christopher Bartle, the Great Britain team manager, who described the one jumping error from Supreme Rock as his "most nervous moment in the whole competition."

Funnell won from two talented Swedish women: school teacher Linda Algotssonon on Stand by Me and airline pilot Paula Tornquist on SAS Monaghan. Both were clear and within the time over Saturday's cross-country course - as was Algotsson's younger sister, Sara, who was lying 13th until forced to withdraw because her mount, Robin des Bois, was lame.

The Swedish team were therefore demoted from second to fifth place yesterday morning. They had been 18 penalties behind the British, who now found themselves with a massive advantage of 100 penalties over their nearest rivals from Germany - but with no inclination to count their gold medals before the last horse had jumped.

The resounding British victory over Germany and Belgium - the two other nations to secure the last of the Olympic places - will have brought welcome news to those who were still reeling from the four rider fatalities this year. All the British team members finished among the top ten - with Ian Stark fifth on Jaybee, Jeanette Brakewell ninth on Over to You and Kristina Gifford tenth on The Gangster II.

The seeds of their success had been sown during the cross-country. In accordance with the team decision, all of them played for safety at the first water complex by taking the slower route. Two nevertheless made the time, with Stark finishing exactly on the optimum of 11min 50sec and Funnell being just one second faster. Gifford was 4sec over and Brakewell, first to go for the team, finished 9sec in arrears.

"Jeanette was a great pathfinder, her horse finished so full of running that we knew the others could go for the time," Bartle said.

Though cautious at the first water, the British took the influential 16th obstacle, comprising a large ditch in front of an arrowhead brush fence, head on. Rodney Powell, one of Britain's two individual riders, sustained severe bruising in a nasty fall there, but the other British horses sailed over it.