As the southern hemisphere turn off their alarm clocks and stretch in bed for those last minutes of sleep the Gold, Silver and Bronze Showjumping medals have been fought for and won in Aachen, Germany at the World Equestrian Games.

In a thrilling second round of the teams competition the unthinkable happened when World Number 1, Marcus Ehning with the 9 year old Bayern bred mare Noltes Kuchengirl crashed and burned at the giant postage stamp (brick wall) and opted to retire as they had already had a rail early in the course.

One of the happiest women in the Aachen arena would have to have been Ireland's Marie Burke, called on at the very last minute to represent her country, she had nothing to lose and everything to prove and that is exactly what she did when she went clear this evening in Aachen. The Irish team improved their final standings to finish in 6th Team placing which doesn't see a medal and sadly does not give them qualification to Beijiing but it will surely have bouyed their spirits going into the final leg of the Samsung Super League in Barcelona later this month.

Another fabulous combination tonight was the 28 year old Gerco Shroder and Eurocommerce Berlin, the handsome grey Holstein bred stallion son of Cassini, who produced three clear rounds of jumping so far. This is the rider jumpingaround.com's Photographic Editor has picked for the World Champion title to be contested on Sunday.

Beezie Madden and Authentic have again proved how consistently brilliant they are after winning the first qualifying class and now coming into the Individual final they sit on top of the leaderboard with no rails down through the three rounds to date - another very strong contender for the World Champion Title.

Katharina Offel for the Ukraine jumped a sensational round but collected one of the most expensive time penalties in the history of the World Equestrian Games.

The final results read this way:

GOLD medal for Team showjumping - The Netherlands (11.01pts)

SILVER medal for Team showjumping - United States of America (18.85pts)

BRONZE medal for Team showjumping - Germany (19.16pts)

4th placing - Ukraine (19.17pts)
5th placing - Switzerland (24.89pts)
6th placing - Ireland (29.08pts)

And you can see why the Ukraine's Katharina's one time penalty was so expensive - at the teams first major outing together they lost the Bronze medal by just .01pt but they certainly got the world's attention by making it clear that they will be a team to be reckoned with - no doubt they will be striving to earn a place on the Samsung Super League competitors list and when they do they will present a serious challenge there - just as they have today in the team jumping.

Friday is a day off for the showjumpers - and they return on Saturday with the top 25 riders vying to be the best 4 in the world.

The USA will be represented by Beezie Madden and McLain Ward
Germany will be represented by Ludger Beerbaum and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum
Netherlands will be represented by Gerco Schroder, Jeroen Dubbledam and Albert Zoer
Spain will be represented by Sergio Alvarez Moya
Switzerland will be represented by Niklaus Schurtenberger and Christina Leibherr
Ireland will be represented by Marie Burke
Belgium will be represented by Jos Lansink and Ludo Philippaerts
Great Britain will be represented by Michael Whitaker
Sweden will be represented by Royne Zetterman and Rolf Goran-Bengtsson
Portugal will be represented by Luciana Diniz
Brazil will be represented by Bernardo Alves
Ukraine will be represented by Katharina Offel, Gregory Wathelet and Jean- Claude van Geenberghe
Norway will be represented by Geir Gullikson
Australia will be represented by Edwina Alexander
France will be repreented by Herve Godignon
Bulgaria will be represented by Samantha McIntosh