Rio record watch: first athlete to win medals at 7 Olympics?

Anky van Grunsven
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The Netherlands’ Anky van Grunsven could become the first athlete to win medals at seven Olympics and on five continents in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

If she competes.

It is a potentially juicy chase for history. Van Grunsven, who is not currently competing but hasn’t ruled out another Olympics, spoke unfazed when reminded of what’s at stake in a phone interview Monday.

“I don’t care,” she dismissed.

Van Grunsven turns 47 years old on Friday. She is a mother of two. She competed at every Olympics since 1988 in equestrian, a sport familiar with age records at the Games:

* Canada’s Ian Millar competed in his 10th Olympics in 2012, a record number across all sports.

* Japan’s Hiroshi Hoketsu went 44 years between his first and second Olympic equestrian appearances at Tokyo 1964 and Beijing 2008. He was the oldest of more than 10,000 total athletes in 2008 and again in 2012, when he was 71.

Equestrian, made up of the disciplines of dressage, eventing and jumping, is the only Olympic sport with no gender distinction. Men and women compete against and with each other in all six medal events — individual and team for each discipline.

Van Grunsven starred in dressage, which is the French word for training. It is, most simply, a test of a horse’s movements — “the highest expression of horse training, is considered the art of equestrian sport and is used as the groundwork for all other disciplines,” according to the International Olympic Committee.

For a visual understanding, watch highlights of the 2012 Olympic individual dressage competition.

Van Grunsven is the most decorated Olympian in her sport with nine medals, including an unprecedented three straight individual gold medals in 2000, 2004 and 2008.

“You look up to this person,” said German-born U.S. dressage rider Steffen Peters, a 50-year-old who competed against van Grunsven at the 1996, 2008 and 2012 Olympics. “I would say she is definitely up there among the best, if not the best.”

Van Grunsven received her first pony at age 6 and debuted at the Seoul 1988 Olympics at age 20. She won zero medals in South Korea, finishing outside the top 20 in the individual competition. At the time, the Netherlands had not won an individual Olympic equestrian medal since 1932.

“I was so upset that I did so bad [in 1988],” she said. “I was ashamed. But one hour later, I thought, I’m here, see what can I learn from this experience. It’s great that I’m part of it. For me, it was a big inspiration.”

Van Grunsven then won nine medals across the next six Olympics — team silver at Barcelona 1992, individual and team silver at Atlanta 1996, individual gold and team silver at Sydney 2000, individual gold at Athens 2004 (while pregnant with her first child and shortly after her father’s death), individual gold and team silver at Beijing 2008 and team bronze at London 2012.

In a sport that requires perfect harmony between human and animal, van Grunsven won individual Olympic gold medals with two different horses — Bonfire in 2000 and Salinero in 2004 and 2008.

“Everybody gets one horse of a lifetime,” Peters said. “To be so successful with multiple horses, that says a lot. … Out of all three disciplines [dressage, eventing, jumping], this would be the hardest discipline to receive a gold medal consistently.”

Van Grunsven, who trains riders now, did not compete at the biggest competition of 2014, the World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France, in the summer. She has no plan to compete in the near future, because she doesn’t have a horse that she believes she could pair with to perform at the level she would like.

“My focus is not on the competitions, because I don’t miss that at all,” she said. “It’s possible that it does happen again one day, but I’m not sure.

“If there would be this great horse, and if I was helping my team, like in London maybe, it means something. Otherwise, no. It’s not a must.”

Van Grunsven’s horse at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics — Salinero — retired in 2013. Van Grunsven is reminded of Salinero, and of Bonfire, daily.

There are life-sized statues of both horses a few minutes away from her home barn in the Dutch town of Erp. Van Grunsven said she can choose one of two roads to drive into her barn, and she prefers the path where she can pass by the statues. Fans do the same.

The Salinero statue was unveiled in November. Before they made the Bonfire statue, creators asked Van Grunsven if she would like to be immortalized on top of it.

“I don’t want to be a statue as long as I live,” she joked.

Yet she is still very recognized in the Netherlands, where soccer and speed skating are the most followed sports.

Van Grunsven said she came in second in a recent poll of most well-known Dutch female athletes behind speed skater Ireen Wuest, who won five medals at the Sochi Olympics. In the past, she shared national honors with swimmer Inge de Bruijn and cyclist Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel.

Van Grunsven admits that if she were to say she’s retired, it wouldn’t mean that much. She said she hated the pressure she felt going into the Olympics in 2008. After she won gold, she thought she would never want to go to the Olympics again.

“Then I went to London anyway [in 2012],” she said. “So, I’m not saying anything anymore. I’m never sure. I prefer to see how my life comes.”

Van Grunsven was sixth in the 2012 Olympic individual dressage and second-best among Dutch riders there. The Netherlands can send up to four dressage riders to Rio 2016.

Van Grunsven still spends days at her barn, training younger athletes and riding for fun. She will go to Rio — at the urging of her 10-year-old son — but perhaps only as a spectator.

If she does ride in Brazil, she would probably win at least one medal and become the first Olympian to win medals at seven Games, Peters said. Van Grunsven and three others — Van Grunsven’s longtime dressage rival German Isabell Werth, Italian fencer Valentina Vezzali and U.S. shooter Kim Rhode — could become the first Olympians to win medals on five continents.

“With Anky, I would say they [the Dutch dressage team] have a chance to win the gold,” Peters said. “Without Anky, they will certainly medal as a team.”

Michael Phelps’ potential record chases in Rio

French Open: Iga Swiatek rolls toward possible Coco Gauff rematch

Iga Swiatek
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Iga Swiatek reached the French Open third round without dropping a set, eyeing a third Roland Garros title in four years. Not that she needed the help, but Swiatek’s immediate draw is wide open after the rest of the seeds in her section lost.

Swiatek dispatched 102nd-ranked American Claire Liu 6-4, 6-0 on Thursday, the same score as her first-round win. She gets 80th-ranked Wang Xinyu of China in the round of 32.

The other three seeds in Swiatek’s section all lost in the first round, so the earliest that the world No. 1 could play another seed is the quarterfinals. And that would be No. 6 Coco Gauff, who was runner-up to Swiatek last year.

Gauff plays her second-round match later Thursday against 61st-ranked Austrian Julia Grabher. Gauff also doesn’t have any seeds in her way before a possible Swiatek showdown.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

Swiatek, who turned 22 on Wednesday, came into this year’s French Open without the invincibility of a year ago, when she was 16-0 in the spring clay season during an overall 37-match win streak.

She retired from her last pre-French Open match with a right thigh injury, but said it wasn’t serious. That diagnosis appears to have been spot-on through two matches this week, though her serve was broken twice in the first set of each match.

While the men’s draw has been upended by 14-time champion Rafael Nadal‘s pre-event withdrawal and No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev‘s loss in the first round, the top women have taken care of business.

Nos. 2, 3 and 4 seeds Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, American Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan also reached the third round without dropping a set.

Though all of them have beaten Swiatek in 2023, the Pole remains the favorite to lift the trophy a week from Saturday. She can join Serena Williams and Justine Henin as the lone women to win three or more French Opens since 2000.

She can also become the youngest woman to win three French Opens since Monica Seles in 1992 and the youngest woman to win four Slams overall since Williams in 2002.

Swiatek doesn’t dwell on it.

“I never even played Serena or Monica Seles,” she said. “I’m kind of living my own life and having my own journey.”

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Penny Oleksiak to miss world swimming championships

Penny Oleksiak
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Seven-time Olympic medalist Penny Oleksiak of Canada will miss July’s world swimming championships because she does not expect to be recovered enough from knee and shoulder injuries.

“The bar that we set was, can she be as good as she’s ever been at these world championships?” coach Ryan Mallette said in a press release. “We just don’t feel like we’re going to be ready to be 100 percent yet this summer. Our focus is to get her back to 100 percent as soon as possible to get ready for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”

Oleksiak, who owns the Canadian record of seven Olympic medals (across all sports), missed Canada’s trials meet for worlds two months ago due to the injuries. She was still named to the team at the time in hope that she would be ready in time for worlds.

The 22-year-old returned to competition last month at a Mare Nostrum meet in Barcelona, after which she chose to focus on continued rehab rather than compete at worlds in Fukuoka, Japan.

“Swimming at Mare Nostrum was a checkpoint for worlds, and I gave it my best shot,” Oleksiak said in the release. “We reviewed my swims there, and it showed me the level I want to get back to. Now I need to focus on my rehab to get back to where I want to be and put myself in position to be at my best next season.”

Oleksiak had knee surgery last year to repair a meniscus. After that, she developed a left shoulder injury.

In 2016, Oleksiak tied for Olympic 100m freestyle gold with American Simone Manuel. She also earned 100m butterfly silver in Rio and 200m free bronze in Tokyo, along with four relay medals between those two Games.

At last year’s worlds, she earned four relay medals and placed fourth in the 100m free.

She anchored the Canadian 4x100m free relay to silver behind Australia at the most recent Olympics and worlds.

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