Kiwi Olympic hopes take another blow

New Zealand dressage officials were putting a brave face on it but their team's chances of qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics when they faced a panel of international judges at Tielcey Park, Palmerston North today had already been dealt a decent blow.
The four-strong Kiwi contingent, which includes 2000 Olympian Kallista Field of Pahiatua, are competing for two available spots at Beijing with Australia and Japan whose impressive scores were known to the New Zealanders before their own assignment commenced.
Not only did Australia's score of 196.167 and Japan's score of 194.792 set a standard which would take some beating but, even worse,one member of the New Zealand squad, Queensland-based Nicole Magoffin, had performed her test during the Australian trial in Sydney with disastrous results.
Magoffin who, interestingly enough, has never competed in New Zealand, posted an individual score of 57.583 per cent, the lowest total of the tri-nations series to date.
No-one was more disappointed than Magoffin herself at what transpired. "I feel I have now put the rest of the team under huge pressure," she was quoted as saying. "I'm so sorry we didn't manage the score I know we are capable of.".
Magoffin's poor effort means New Zealand's three remaining riders, Field. Bill Noble and Jody Hartstone, all needed to post scores in at least the mid 60's to even remain in the race.
"It's not an impossible task," Dressage New Zealand sports manager Wendy Hamerton said. "Of all the combinations Nicole is the least experienced. When you look at the scores each of the others have (historically )achieved it's not beyond their capability."
Hamerton labelled the conditions in Sydney as "atrocious" and said they may well have contributed to Magoffin's horse making uncharacteristic errors in his sequence chances and a canter pirouette.
The fact Field, Noble and Hartstone have competed at Teilcey Park on numerous occasions has to be in their favour and Hamerton said all three were "feeling good" going into the competition.
Even posting a better score than current second placegetters Japan won't, however, give New Zealand automatic entry into the Beijing Olympics.
It would then be up to the New Zealand Olympic committee to sanction it as well and that decision would probably not be made until early June.
The seriousness with which Japan has approached the tri-nations series is shown by the fact their officials were intending to be at Tielcey Park today to watch the Kiwis in action.