Merveldt will rise to Olympic challenge

Nobody, with due respect to dressage rider Anna Merveldt, would expect her to win a medal in the Olympics... least of all herself.

That is not to say the 49-year-old would travel without hope, though, a realistic aspiration would be that she live up to the Games’ ethos of being the best that she can be.

It emerged last weekend that Merveldt had secured an Olympic place for Ireland and, while it is up to Horse Sport Ireland to nominate who goes to London, it is hard to see beyond Merveldt. She had been second on the reserve list, which proved sufficient as Colombia can, at most, take up just one of the three places it earned as bronze medallist at the Pan American Games in Mexico, last October.