Lausanne SUI, 1 July 2011 – The eight-leg FEI Nations Cup 2011 series reaches the halfway stage when it resumes, after a four-week break, at Falsterbo, Sweden next Friday (8 July), and with The Netherlands holding a solid lead at the top of the league table. Once again this will be a nine-nation contest as the host country is entitled to compete despite being relegated to the Promotional League last season. They cannot earn Top League points, but the Swedes could well pull off a big result because they won here on their home turf last summer and they have been fighting hard, and very successfully, in this year’s Promotional League series. They may well be on their way back to the elite level of the sport.
Swedish Chef d’Equipe, Sylve Soderstrand, named his side earlier this week and it includes the young lady who set the Gothenburg leg of last season’s Rolex FEI World Cup Jumping series alight with a superb winning performance. Riding the Cruising mare Midtown du Tillard, 24 year old Angelica Augustsson became an overnight sensation when producing a devastating turn of speed in the 12-horse jump-off which left Australian star Edwina Alexander and German ace Ludger Beerbaum in her immediate wake. Beerbaum was moved to comment afterwards, “This is the cream – it doesn’t come better than this, and we will remember today for a very long time.” And Augustsson will be in the distinguished company of Rolf-Goran Bengtsson, Malin Baryard-Johnsson and Peder Fredricson. It seems the Swedes really do intend to make an impression next Friday afternoon.
SUPER-CONFIDENT
The Dutch will be feeling super-confident after their back-to-back double of victories in Rome (ITA) and St Gallen (SUI) which have ensured their 4.5 advantage at the head of the leaderboard. Team manager Rob Ehrens said from the outset that he wanted to do most of the hard work early this season to ease the pressure closer to the FEI European Championships in Madrid in September – and it has worked like a dream. He is, however, still taking a strong squad that includes Piet Raymakers Jr, Leon Thijssen, Maikel van der Vleuten, Vincent Voorn and Albert Zoer.
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