Germany's pentathlete Annika Schleu's Olympic glory was ripped away after her horse refused to jump during the women's pentathlon event at Tokyo Olympics 2020. Annika, who finished fourth in the Rio Olympics, was going brilliantly in the beginning and had one of the biggest leads in Olympics history.
After the first two pentathlon events - fencing and swimming - she was in the first place. However, things changed dramatically when her horse did not respond to her instructions in the jumping round. Schleu lost her top spot after getting zero points in the show jumping round and eventually broke down into tears after crashing from 1st to 31st place in a field of 36. Photos and videos of the incident have gone viral on social media.
Schleu secured 18th spot in the laser run after the jumping round. Great Britain's Katie French set a brand new Olympic record to win the gold medal.
Schleu had gone through an emotional journey to reach the grand stage of 2021 Tokyo Olympics, as she had secured fourth position in in 2016, narrowly missing out on winning a medal. Schleu's governing body, UIPM, called her "the undoubted star" of the event's first day in 2021.
After her dominating win in the fencing event, she had told UIPM on Thursday: "Amazing. This is the first time I finished first in fencing," adding later, "I will try to get my nerves to survive until tomorrow. It is just unbelievable. Everything I tried made sense, everything touched.
"If I am honest, I am a little scared as well," she continued. "I hope I manage to stay calm and concentrate on every discipline tomorrow. We don't know the horse and in the riding, dreams can just die. You can go from first to last place."