Kürten to return to the Irish team

EQUESTRIAN:Jessica Kürten returns to the Irish show jumping team in the middle of next month for the first time since falling out with team manager Robert Splaine in Lucerne last June.

Kürten refused to jump on teams with Cian O'Connor in 2005 following the positive dope test on O'Connor's Athens Olympic gold medal horse Waterford Crystal and then, after a row with the selectors, again refused to ride on the Irish team for the remainder of the 2005 season.

She returned to the fold in Aachen last May but, after being nominated for the squad in Lucerne at the beginning of June, was left on the subs bench by newly-appointed team manager Splaine. Then ranked number two in the world, Kürten refused to put herself forward for selection for the rest of 2006.

Without Kürten on board, Team Ireland were dumped out of the Samsung Super League last season and also failed in their attempt to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

With Olympic qualification as his main goal in 2007, Splaine contacted Kürten at her German base last week to ask her to return. She has now agreed to line out at the Danish Nations Cup meeting in Copenhagen in the middle of next month.

"I'm very much looking forward to it", Kürten told The Irish Times last night, as she made the final travel preparations before heading for the big British indoor event at Birmingham, which gets under way tomorrow.

Kürten had already entered her horses for the French fixture in La Baule, which runs on the same dates as Copenhagen, but will now travel to Denmark just for the Nations Cup on the Friday and then go back to La Baule for the final two days of that show.

Kürten will be joined in Copenhagen by Cameron Hanley, Capt Shane Carey and Cian O'Connor, while the quartet of Shane Breen, Conor Swail, Ryan Crumley and Capt Gerry Flynn will be bidding for Irish success at the Austrian Nations Cup in Linz on the same day.

Splaine is relieved to have Kürten back on the team. "It's a very important year and I need everybody playing ball," he said last night. "Olympic qualification is of paramount importance this year, it's the number one goal."

Team Ireland failed in its bid to qualify for Beijing when finishing sixth, one place outside the qualification zone, at last year's World Equestrian Games in Aachen.

The final qualifier is at the European championships in Mannheim, the week after the Dublin Horse Show. Ireland needs to finish in the top three of those nations not already qualified if the team is to make the cut for next year's Olympics.

The international calendar includes a show in Mannheim at the beginning of May, a week before the Copenhagen/Linz Nations Cup shows. Kürten, Hanley, O'Connor, Denis Lynch and Marie Burke have been named in that squad.