Equestrian jumping ©

The United States breathes a sigh of relief after securing a last-minute equestrian jumping ticket for Paris 2024. They risked everything on the last opportunity available to them, the Pan American Games. Their success allows them to defend many of the achievements they obtained in the last Olympic events.

The Pan American Games and the Nations Cups in eventing and equestrian jumping were the last chance for countries to obtain team tickets for Paris 2024.

There is one remaining spot for the dressage team, which is likely to be allocated to the highest-ranked country that has not yet qualified.

The United States, which has won six equestrian jumping medals in the last five Olympics, did not qualify through the Nations Cup finals and the 2022 World Championships. This meant that the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games were the last opportunity for the country. The United States is one of the strongest equestrian jumping nations in the world to secure a team ticket for Paris. After finishing the first day in provisional fifth place, the team climbed the rankings to win gold and qualify for Paris.

"There's a great sense of relief," said U.S. team chef d'équipe Robert Ridland. "We really brought this down to the wire in terms of qualification," he added. "I don't think people have talked about how competitive the Pan American Games have become, and it's very stiff competition for all the teams. For us, this gold is just the icing on the cake because our priority was to secure our qualification, so now the team can enjoy this moment, but we have to immediately start shifting our focus and planning to Paris," the official explained.

Canada secured three passes in the three Olympic disciplines contested in Chile. Brazil, which had already qualified for Olympic equestrian jumping at the 2023 Nations Cup final, obtained the ticket for Paris for the team in dressage and eventing, while Mexico secured a place in team equestrian jumping.

Mike Winter, part of Canada's gold medal-winning eventing team in Santiago, credited the achievement to "two years of complete high-performance restructuring." "I've been in the high-performance program since 1995, and I've been on the team since 2003, and this is the most solid and productive structure we've had," he noted.

The two individual dressage passes available for Paris 2024 went to Ecuador, with Julio Mendoza Loor on Jewel's Goldstrike, winning the nation's first Pan American Games dressage gold medal, and to Chile, with Svenja Grimm on Doctor Rossi.

Italy secured its Paris eventing spot through the Nations Cup series. Finally, Great Britain secured its place in Paris in all three disciplines at the 2022 World Championships.