Analysis of India's performance in Equestrian at Paris 2024 Olympics

India sent 117 athletes to the recently concluded Paris Olympics 2024, and equestrian was one of the events where the country was represented. Despite only sending a lone rider to the French capital—Anush Agarwalla—and failing to clinch any medals at the quadrennial event, equestrianism reached new heights for India at this year’s Summer Olympic Games.

Let’s take a detailed look into how India’s only equestrian rider fared among the world’s best at the Paris Olympics 2024.

Anush Agarwalla

The Kolkata-born 24-year-old rider scripted history by becoming the first Indian horse rider to take part in the dressage event at the Olympic Games.

Agarwalla was chosen by the Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) as India’s horseriding representative over fellow Kolkata-born rider Shruti Vora based on the former’s performances in the preceding competitions.

Anush Agarwalla was one of the up-and-coming stars in horseriding, even though the sport is not popular in India. He moved to Germany for training at 17 years old under the tutelage of former Olympic gold medalist Hubertus Schmidt.

After Agarwalla breached the Minimum Eligibility Requirement (MER) four times, he and his German-born horse Sir Caramello Old were on the plane to Paris to take part in the dressage event.

Even though Anush Agarwalla was not exactly hoping to rock the boat in Paris, he was still going in as a two-time medalist at the 2022 Asian Games, winning a gold medal at the team dressage event as well as a bronze medal at the individual dressage event.

However, despite the high hopes, Agarwalla and Sir Caramello failed to qualify for the finals of the individual dressage event. The Indian rider finished in the ninth position in the 10-person Group E at the qualifier round.

Anush Agarwalla and Sir Caramello Old scored 66.444% by the judges, which saw them fall way behind the group leader Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour of Denmark, who received 80.792 points.

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