Win would ease Olympic agony

Ireland's show jumpers may have been denied a crack at Olympic glory following the controversial decision not to send a team to Sydney, but the achievement of winning an unprecedented 10 Nations Cups in the 1999/2000 Samsung series has put the Irish emphatically back in a top-of-the-world slot they haven't visited since the 1970s.

So much so that European champion Alexandra Ledermann, the flamboyant French rider who took individual bronze four years ago in Atlanta, declared in the build-up to Sydney that the show-jumping medals at the Games would be devalued because the Irish weren't going to be there.

The decision not to send a team to the Olympics was unpopular at the time it was made back in May and the rumblings continued right through to Sydney, where a constant question was on everyone's lips - why are the Irish not here?

"When the decision was made it was the right decision," says Colonel Ned Campion, who travelled to Sydney as team leader for the Ireland's other equestrians. "With hindsight I honestly believe it's better that everyone says why weren't you there rather than why were you there."

The loss in the spring of two world beaters - Cruising to Britain and then retirement and the sale of Charlton to Sweden - obviously left Ireland's chances of Olympic success dramatically diminished, but the decision not to send a team to Sydney still came as a shock to the riders.

The selectors said at the time that resources would be ploughed into the Nations Cup circuit in a bid to give some of the younger riders team experience that they would undoubtedly not have got with an Olympic build-up in operation.

The result has been a record 10 Nations Cup wins and a runaway victory in the Samsung series that started in Linz just over 12 months ago.

Ireland didn't have a team for the Austrian round, but they put together an untried quartet for Zagreb a week later to finish second and, the following week, rang the changes once again to score in Athens and initiate a winning streak that lasted right through to the semi-finals in Calgary, Canada last month.

Cian O'Connor was the only one of the Zagreb squad to travel on to Athens, where he was joined by Army duo Captain Gerry Flynn and Lt Shane Carey and Dermott Lennon, with Lennon producing a win-clinching double clear from the Irish sport horse mare Liscalgot.

A more experienced trio of Paul Darragh, Jessica Kurten and Peter Charles then joined forces with Lennon in Switzerland when Ireland's 2000 campaign kicked off in Lucerne with a third place. But it was back to the winner's enclosure seven days later, when Lennon's place was taken by Billy Twomey for victory at the prestigious Pavarotti International at Modena.

Cameron Hanley teamed up with the two Army boys and Cian O'Connor in Helsinki and, just a week after the Italian job, the Irish were out in front again and, just to emphasise their supremacy, the same quartet then scored in Drammen, Norway the following week.

But the piece de resistance came on July 7 when the Swedish and Belgian meetings hosted Nations Cups on the same day. Billy Twomey, Neal Fearon, Dermott Lennon and Robert Splaine routed the opposition in Lummen and, literally an hour later, the news came through that Cameron Hanley, the Army pair and Cian O'Connor had swept to victory in Falsterbo for an Irish double of monumental proportions.

The winning streak faltered slightly in Aachen, although chef d'equipe Eddie Macken was still thrilled with third. Co Tipperary-born American-based Kevin Babington had been given a baptism of fire at the German fixture, making both his Nations Cup and European debut, but he was part of the Irish victory lap in Hickstead a fortnight later.

Kurten, Lennon, Twomey and Charles then maintained the winning formula on home ground at Kerrygold Dublin and, after a week's break, Kurten and Lennon travelled to Holland with Babington and Splaine for yet another victory, this time in Rotterdam.

A fourth in Linz last month was, incredibly, Ireland's worst result of the season, but the Samsung semi-final in Calgary the following week gave Babington, Lennon, Twomey and Kurten a chance to redress the balance and they did it in style, notching up a record 10th win of the season to finish as undisputed winners of the series.

But the crunch comes in Rome on Saturday when the quartet of Babington, Lennon, Hanley and newly sponsored 18-year-old Neal Fearon face up to the challenge of seven other nations in the Samsung finals, and the red-hot favourite status is weighing heavily.

"Every time we went to shows this year we were kind of the underdogs", Rome chef d'equipe Tommy Wade says, "but then we did the job on the day. We haven't got our strongest team this time and I'd be delighted if we finished third or fourth. But we won't go down without a fight. We'll give it a lash anyway."

Wade's giving it a lash has worked miracles in the past and all of the 12 riders that have been involved in Ireland's world record 10 wins in the Samsung series are hoping it will produce the goods again on Saturday when a triumphant finish would go a long way to erasing the thoughts of what might have been in Sydney.