EQUINE 'STRICTLY COME DANCING.'

The two Olympic medals won by the dressage specialists, Charlotte Dugardin and Laura Bechtolsheimer, for their performances in the horse dancing routine, must go down as the most difficult discipline of the whole games. To do whatever is needed from the rider throughout the procedure must require sublime timing. I am assuming that the rider is directing her mount. Well done to these two supreme riders and competitors!

There are, of course, a number of athletes to be congratulated, many of them women. Although the author is saddened by the fact that, following our early promise in 'track and field', we have rarely been at the party. After all, track and field are the very essence of the proceedings. Perhaps we might highlight, that the performances of the Brownlee Brothers in the Triathlon was most impressive. Heaven only knows what it must feel like to serve a fifteen second penalty just before the final lap of the 10 km run, when all that Jonny, the younger brother would have wanted to do, was to lie down; following a 1.5 km swim, immediately mounting a cycle, for the 43 km race, without losing a place, securing the bronze medal. This was monumental. Probably, to his contemporaries, this was the performance of the two week's exertions.


SIR BRUCE FORSYTH IS SEEKING LESSONS IN HORSE RIDING.