Bouncing back from Paris 2024 disappointment
Coming to Paris 2024, von Eckermann and King Edward were the overwhelming favourites for gold.
But what was supposed to be von Eckermann’s golden moment in the individual final turned into what he later described as the “worst thing that has happened to me”. A miscommunication error ahead of fence eight saw him and King Edward swerve in different directions. The rider fell on the ground and was eliminated from the competition.
Von Eckermann’s first reaction after getting on his feet was to walk up to his horse and make sure he was not hurt. After that, the disappointment sunk in.
“It’s a lot of emotions. You’ve been working for many years for that day, for that two minutes and it’s one thing if you feel that everything is not in place and the form was not really there, but that was the hardest, that everything was there,” von Eckermann said. “But then everything turned around to something else.”
It was a heartbreaking moment for von Eckermann, who was hoping Paris 2024 would be his chance to win one of the last major individual medals he was missing, but what made it even more painful was that these were the last Olympic Games for King Edward.
“This horse is (so) special, so you want to somehow give him the history of the horse,” von Eckermann said. “Somehow you felt that you let down his reputation.”
It was ultimately von Eckermann’s family and friends who helped the rider bounce back from the crushing disappointment of Paris 2024. The four-time Olympian was competing again the following week, in Dublin, and earned two top-10 finishes with his other horses, Glamour Girl and Iliana, in five-star competitions.
“I was a little bit afraid how will this affect me and, this feeling in the stomach, how long will that stay but I have to say thanks to my family and the people around me that were very supportive, so I got out of it very quickly,” von Eckermann recalled. “I said, ‘OK, I can’t change this, this is what happened’. For me, it was very important to get in the ring directly again and not stay at home and try to bury myself in the ground.
“I always had my son as an example. I always said I want to be an example to him and we will fail but it’s important to go up again and get going again.”