Chris interviews runner-up Bettina Hoy in the Rolex showjumping finals
Bettina Hoy (born Bettina Overesch on November 7, 1962) is an Olympic-level equestrian rider, who competes for Germany in Eventing competitions. Bettina competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics and in the 2004 Summer Olympics.
At the 2004 Summer Olympics, held in Athens, Hoy competed in the three-day eventing competition, both as an individual rider and as part of the German team.
After the dressage and cross-country stages, Hoy was leading the field on the third day. In the show-jumping, the third and final event, Hoy did not knock any fences down. However, after originally crossing the start line Hoy had circled around again and crossed it a second time before starting her run. This cost her a 14-point time penalty, pushing her from first to fourth place and out of the medals - the German team fell from first to ninth place.
After a protest by the German team to the appeals panel of the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), stating that Hoy could not have known she had crossed the line when she first did because the clock had not started, the decision to add the time penalties were reversed. Hoy and the German team were both awarded the gold medals. However, the British, French and American teams subsequently appealled to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). The CAS' verdict was that the FEI appeals panel had overstated their jurisdiction in removing the time penalties. As a result, Hoy and the German team lost their gold medals. As a result, Britain's Leslie Law received the individual gold medal, America's Kimberly Severson the silver and Britain's Pippa Funnell the bronze. In the team event, France won the gold, Britain the silver and America the bronze.
She lives in the United Kingdom, with her husband Andrew Hoy, who competes at the Olympic level for Australia. The Hoys are a rare married couple competing in the same Olympic discipline for different teams in the same year (see also Raphael Poiree and Liv Grete Skjelbreid Poirée).
