Aussies win Olympic silver in team eventing

Australia's equestrian team won silver in the eventing competition in Beijing on Tuesday evening after an imperious display from the Germans in the showjumping final secured a win in the three-day tournament.

Hinrich Peter Romeike dropped just one rail on a superb final run for the Germans, giving them a 5.10 penalty buffer over Australia's team of Shane Rose, Sonja Johnson, Lucinda Fredericks, Clayton Fredericks and Megan Jones.

Germany had led after the cross-country section on Monday, and Australia took top spot in the opening dressage event.

A strong all-round performance saw Germany's mixed team of Romeike, Peter Thomsen, Frank Ostholt, Andreas Dibowski and Ingrid Klimke restrict itself to just 166.10 penalty points.

Jones had the penultimate ride of the evening and Australia's last, producing a near-flawless display atop Irish Jester to record just 4 penalty points.

Romeike needed to knock off at least three rails to put Australia into gold medal contention, but a fine run completed the strongest individual performance of the tournament and saw the Germans to safety atop the medal podium.

Rose says it was too hard to peg the Germans back on the tough Hong Kong course.

"It proved very difficult for most of the combinations out there. The rest of the team did a great job, and it's great to have that silver medal," he said.

Great Britain finished third on 185.70 points, 14.5 adrift of the Australians.

Germany was stripped its team eventing gold in Athens four years ago when Bettina Hoy was disqualified for crossing the starting line in a warm-up lap before the show jumping.

-ABC/Reuters