Maria Klementieva Out of Olympic Race for Russian Team Spot

Dressage

Russia

Russian Olympic hopeful Maria Klementieva has withdrawn from team consideration for the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Klementieva was a strong frontrunner for Russian team selection as one of the better scoring Russian Grand Prix riders of the moment.

Normally based at Anatoly and Inessa Merkulova's New Century equestrian centre in Moscow, the 39-year old Maria is trained by Ukrainian Inna Tzydrenkova. A newcomer to the sport, Maria only started with competitive dressage seven years ago.

Aboard the 13-year old American bred Hanoverian Doctor Wendell MF (by Don Principe x Sandro Hit), which she purchased in Germany in July 2017, she scored 67.326% in the Grand Prix at the 2021 CDI Hagen, 68.826% at the CDIO Compiegne and 69.609% at the CDI Budapest.

Unfortunately her Russian Olympic team short-listed Doctor Wendell injured himself and is not fit to compete.

"It is with an immense regret that I must announce that Doc and I are no longer in the run for the Olympic team 2021," said Maria "My cheeky stallion injured him self while having fun and explaining others his importance. Thank God it’s not serious, but enough to get some vacation for him. In the next few weeks he’ll be enjoying some spa treatments and my self will be cheering for my team mates."

Klementieva told Eurodressage that, “we were working hard with Doc to preform better every time. Unfortunately, things not always go as we plan, But now I will for sure not risk Doc’s health.”

Maria will not return to Moscow, but has decided to stay in Europe. She is now at Stable Unikornis in Budapest but plans to head to the South of France for the summer.

“We’ll stay in Europe,” she explained. “If all goes well, we can start getting back to work in couple of weeks and then can plan further steps!”