The New Zealanders arrive at 6:30am as arranged and we gently manoeuvre the camper out of the bay. I manage to avoid the trees this time! When we reach the exit of the campsite the gate is locked! It’s nearly 7:00 by now, and the gate should have been open for an hour. We knock on various doors, but get no response. Eventually, the kiwi guy is convinced that he’s seen a guy in one of the offices, so he bangs away until the Greek son of the owner appears (in just a towel) and opens the gate for us.
The drive to the airport is reasonably uneventful, but the shenanigans at the campsite have left us short on time. We don’t know how long it’s going to take us to get to venue once we’ve parked. The first car park entrance we come across has a height restriction, so we drop the Kiwi couple off, as we look for a gate we can use. There are campers in the distance so there must be one!
There are loads of Union jacks on the Z10 bus to Markopoulo. We discover that the Great Britain team have done well in the dressage section. Individually, Phillipa Funnell is second, William Fox-Pitt is sixth and Leslie Law is tenth. This means that Great Britain narrowly lead the team event after the first section.
We walk to the cross-country course and set a base camp near to fence 26, a formidable looking triple jump with the second obstacle on the top of a small hill. We watch the first few riders come up and over this jump until the first of the Brits, Jeanette Brakewell comes round. She completes a clear round but has 4 time penalties, but she seems to be acting as a pathfinder for the rest of the team, as she doesn’t appear to be pushing it.
We see Sasha Harrison (16), the daughter of the Irish horse owners we met on the metro after the Opening Ceremony, come past and then shortly afterwards Mary King (24). On the tannoy we hear that the Harrison horse had a run-out at the first water obstacle, and picked up 20 faults. Britain’s King goes on to complete a clear round.
Julie and Verity decide to stay under the pistachio tree, whilst Beth and I walk the course. We see the third British rider, Leslie Law (41) go past. He has a clear round with 1.2 time penalties.
There are some impressive fences but very few appear to present much of a challenge to the horses. The water jump is the exception and there is a large crowd gathered around it. It is here that we see Phillipa Funnell (58) as she rides through. She seems to be going well, so we are astounded to hear that she has picked up 11½ time faults!
The penultimate rider and final British competitor is William Fox-Pitt (74), he goes clear and we watch the final rider, the german Ingrid Klimke on the big screen. She too completes the course with no penalties.
At the end of the second phase of the eventing the scoreboard showed three British riders in contention for medals with the show-jumping to come tomorrow.
| 1 | Nicolas Touzaint (France) | 29.4 |
| 2 | Bettina Hoy (Germany) | 35.6 |
| 3 | Kimberly Severson (USA) | 36.2 |
| 4 | Jean Teulere (France) | 38.4 |
| 5 | William Fox-Pitt (Great Britain) | 38.6 |
| 6 | Ingrid Klimke (Germany) | 41.0 |
| 7 | Rebel Morrow (New Zealand) | 42.2 |
| 8 | Philippa Funnell (Great Britain) | 42.6 |
| 9 | Frank Ostholt (Germany) | 43.0 |
| 10 | Heelan Tompkins (New Zealand) | 44.0 |
| 11 | Leslie Law (Great Britain) | 44.4 |
France lead the team event on 113.4 points, with Germany second on 119.6 and GB third on 125.6.
We take the Z10 back to the airport and check out the car hire companies at the airport. With a bit of haggling we secure a white fiat puncto with very good air conditioning (quickly dubbed ‘Snowy’ by the girls). In convoy we head back to the campsite, Verity with me in the camper and Beth with Julie in the car. Beth manages to catch up on a bit of sleep in the car!
On our return to the campsite, we discover the dutch hockey supporters and the French fencing fans have departed. They had been successful in finding another campsite nearer to their venues.