The new year has not started well for triple Olympic champion Anky van Grunsven. She has fractured her pelvis in a riding accident.
"Unfortunately my year didn't start very well," Van Grunsven took to Facebook. "On New Year's Eve day I fell hard from a horse. Looks like when I fall I do it wel. I was picked up by the ambulance, broken pelvis. Fortunately I don't need an operation."
Anky added that this forced rest will be hard for her but that's it is the "risk of the trade."
"I won't be on a horse for the upcoming time. First I need to try to walk again," added Van Grunsven who wrote history by being the only dressage rider to ever win three, consecutive Olympic individual gold medals. She did so in 2000 (Bonfire), and in 2004 and 2008 (Salinero). She holds the record by winning the World Cup Finals nine times. She retired from international dressage sport in 2012 after her last Olympics in Salinero.
Since then she continued to coach some students, her most prolific ones on the international scene are Yessin Rahmouni, Tommie Visser and Jorinde Verwimp. Anky spends the majority of her time supporting the career of her two show jumping children, Yannick Janssen and Ava Eden.
CDI-W 's Hertogenbosch where her biggest rival,
in her days, Isabell Werth won the class
Photo © Astrid Appels - Dirk Caremans
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