Horse riders are often among the oldest athletes at the Olympics, but the case of Andrew Hoy, 62, commands admiration.
In Tokyo, the Australian eventing rider competed in his eighth Olympic Games (a record in Australia) and discovered the Olympic world in 1984, in Los Angeles.
JO Riding.
At 62 years old and for his 8th Olympic Games, veteran Andrew Hoy offers himself two more medals https://t.co/1HucXVeG5r
- Ouest-France (@OuestFrance) August 2, 2021
That summer, he landed at 25 in the city of angels.
“In Los Angeles, I was just a kid,” he says on the website of the International Riding Federation (FEI).
When I started in this sport I was proud to be the youngest on the team, jokes the Australian, winner of his first Olympic medal in Barcelona in 1992. People in the village ask me what I'm doing there, if I am an official and I tell them no, I am an athlete ... "
In Los Angeles, Hoy does not make a podium but takes a liking to the high mass of sport.
He will participate in the Games until those in Athens in 2004 without stopping.
By the way, the Australian won three gold medals by teams (1992, 1996 and 2000) and one silver in individual (2000).
How does he look at nearly 40 years of Olympism?
“I think the world has changed, sport and the equestrian world too.
Things are much better organized and maybe a little more complicated in some ways. ”
At the turn of the 2000s, Andrew migrated to England to settle with his partner, the German rider Bettina Hoy.
Now separated, the two riders remain the only married couple to have faced each other in different teams for the same Olympic medal.
Andrew subsequently missed the Beijing Games in 2008, returned for those in London in 2012, before missing those in Rio in 2016.
This year, he is participating in his eighth Olympic Games in Tokyo.
A successful competition for him, since he won two medals in show jumping this Monday, with team silver and individual bronze.
“It's very, very special,” said Hoy, who also became Australia's oldest medalist in history.
We don't come to the Olympics to finish 4th, 5th or 6th.
We're only coming to get a medal and, look, it's been a complete team effort ... ”
Besides his six medals, including three gold, Hoy is the oldest Olympic medalist since 1968. Because he did not break the record of Swiss Louis Noverraz, silver medal in sailing at 66 at the Mexico Games in 1968.
