Aachen, September 1st, 2006

Ysbrand Chardon on course for 4th World Championship gold

"First of all I have got to drive clear in the obstacle competition tomorrow, then we can talk about a World Championship title," said the Dutch driver, Ysbrand Chardon. Cheered on by 30,000 spectators, he narrowly took the lead in the combined classification of the World Championships of the Four-in-Hand Drivers after the Marathon course. The 45-year-old is getting read to win the individual gold medal for the fourth time, having previously claimed the title in 1988, 1992 and 2002.

The Marathon course, which was built by the German course builder, Dr. Wolfgang Asendorf from Salzhausen, was praised highly by Chardon. The obstacles had been well constructed with the horses in mind and were fitting for a World Championships. Whereby, the first obstacle, which was built on a hill slope, did prove to be a great challenge for some of the drivers. The carriages of the Irish driver, Barry Capstick and of Barry Brans, who competes for the Netherlands Antilles, were both eliminated here. Asendorf explained: "I consciously placed this obstacle at the beginning of the course, so that the horses would still be fresh."

With a score of 146.37 penalty points, the World Champion of 1996, Felix-Marie Brasseur from Belgium is close on the heels of the Dutch driver Chardon, whose overall score totals 145.30 penalty points after the dressage and cross-country. If Brasseur, who is ahead of him in the starting order, drives clear in the obstacle course tomorrow, Chardon will at the most be able to risk a time fault, if he doesn't want to endanger his title. With a clear gap in-between, the two leading drivers are followed in third place after the interim results, by the Swedish World Champion of 2002, Tomas Eriksson (153.24), ahead of Christoph Sandmann, who is currently the best German driver with 154.24 penalty points. His team colleagues Michael Freund and Rainer Duen are lying in 9th and 17th place respectively.

Germany is currently heading the team classification with 311.84 points. There are only 4 points separating them from the Dutch team (315.03), which corresponds to just over one obstacle fault. The Oranje drivers are being chased by the Belgian team (315.95). After the dramatic showdown for the Team Show-jumping World Championship title yesterday, the deciding competition of the Four-in-Hand Drivers also promises to be highly exciting. The obstacle driving competition starts on Saturday at 9 a.m.