LONDON (Reuters) – Charlotte Dujardin can become Britain’s most decorated female Olympian if she wins a seventh medal in Paris and the dressage rider says she wants to inspire her baby daughter.
The 39-year-old, who clinched gold in the individual and team events on Valegro at London 2012 and won team silver and individual gold at the Rio Games, will be competing in her fourth Olympics starting on Friday.
Dujardin also won two bronze medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and a medal of any colour in Paris would take her tally past that of retired cyclist Laura Kenny, who also has six Olympic medals.
“(The record) isn’t really something I’m thinking about going to Paris if I’m honest. I’m going to compete and do my best,” Dujardin told Reuters.
“Its going to be a very different Olympics now that I’m a mum. I guess obviously if that does happen that is a huge achievement. It just makes me feel so proud as a mum.
“Hopefully one day when she (daughter Isabella) is a bit older and whatever she wants to do in life, whether it be horses or another sport, I can inspire her and make her realise how hard work it is and what it takes to be able to go to an Olympic Games.”
Having won team gold in the European Championships last September after giving birth to Isabella in March 2023, Dujardin said she is back in the groove.
“It’s always a worry I think having time out and you get back on and think, ‘Can I still do it?’,” she said in a telephone interview after Britain’s squad was announced.
“I was like, ‘Yep, I can still do it, I can still have all the feelings that I had before.'”
Dujardin, ranked fourth in the International Equestrian Federation’s (FEI) world dressage standings, will be riding 11-year-old gelding Imhotep – known as Pete in the stables – in Paris.
“Pete’s a very enthusiastic horse and that’s the sort of horse that I like,” she said.
“Pete at nine years old did the world equestrian games, at 10 years old he did the European Championships and at 11 years old he’s doing the Olympics. That just goes to show how clever and talented he is.”
The dressage competition begins on July 20 at the Chateau de Versailles. Dujardin will compete in the team events alongside her European Championship-winning teammates Carl Hester and Charlotte Fry.
(Writing by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru, reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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