Charles returns to ride for Britain again

Show Jumping: Double European gold medallist Peter Charles has shed the Irish team jacket and gone back to Britain.

The 47-year-old Irishman was born in Liverpool and initially rode with the Union Jack on his saddle cloth, but declared for Ireland in 1992 and sported the tricolour at the Barcelona Olympics that year.

He went on to win individual gold at the 1995 European championships in St Gallen, Switzerland, and team gold in 2001 in Arnhem in the Netherlands, the same year he won the first of three Hickstead Derbys. He has been less prominent on Irish teams in recent years and suffered a career-threatening injury last October when he broke his back and shattered three ribs in a fall at a show near his home in Hampshire.

After months of physiotherapy, Charles started back in the saddle this week, only days after his 32-year-old nephew, Nick Charles, who has been deputising for his injured uncle, broke his neck in a fall.

"I've done my bit for the Irish team and I've put my heart and soul into it for the past 14 years," Charles told The Irish Times from his Hampshire home last night, "but it's easier for me to ride for Britain.

"We live here, my owners are British and it's not easy to ask owners to support a team they have nothing to do with."

He also has a new sponsor, British shipping company Murka, which comes on stream next month and will, according to Charles, last until he decides to hang up his boots, which won't be any time soon as he has ambitions to ride at both the 2012 Olympics in London and at the Games in 2016.

"I've won plenty and I'll do it all again," he said.

"I love both countries equally. Ireland's given me a great career and my wife is Irish. I was lucky to have a bite of both cherries, but I've put a lot back in as well."

He declined to comment on the rumoured fallout with team manager Robert Splaine, saying only: "I didn't see eye to eye with Splaine, but I want to leave on good terms and I wish him and the team good luck."