Three-time Olympic champion avoids surgery after ‘serious’ riding fall

Three-time Olympic dressage champion Anky van Grunsven is recovering after breaking her pelvis in a riding accident.

The Dutch rider was injured in a fall on 31 December, two days before her 57th birthday.

“Unfortunately my year didn’t start well. [On] New Year’s Eve I had a serious fall from a horse. It seems like if I fall, I’ll do it right,” said Anky, who was taken to hospital by ambulance where it was confirmed that she had broken her pelvis.

“Lucky accident; no surgery required. I won’t be on horseback for a while and will try to walk again first.”

Anky’s first Olympic appearance was at the 1988 Seoul Games on Prisco. She went on to compete at every Olympics up to and including London 2012, winning her first medal, team silver, with Bonfire at Barcelona in 1992. She went on to win eight further Olympic medals; four team silvers and a bronze, an individual silver, and three individual golds.

Anky made history when she became the first rider to win individual Olympic gold three times in a row; with Bonfire at the Sydney Games in 2000, and with Salinero at the 2004 Athens Games and in 2008 in Hong Kong. She has also won six world medals, and 14 Europeans.

She and Salinero set a freestyle world record at ’s-Hertogenbosch in 2006, scoring 87.925%, and followed it up with individual gold at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen that year. They also won four World Cup Final titles.

The London Olympics was Anky and Salinero’s final international dressage competition, after which both retired from the sport. Salinero died in 2022 aged 28.

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