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Beerbaum's progress from donkey derbies to triple Olympic glory
BERLIN, Sept 1 (AFP) - Should German horseman Ludger Beerbaum win the show jumping competition at Sydney he will join an elite group of athletes to win gold medals at four successive games. It is all a far cry from Beerbaum's humble beginnings in the saddle when his father Horst encouraged his son to ride donkeys. Beerbaum will be 37 years old by the time battle commences in Sydney but by the standards of show jumping that gives him time for several more appearances at the world's biggest sporting event. He first topped the podium in the team competition in Seoul in 1988 just three years after teaming up with his mentor veteran Paul Schockemohle. Schockemohle had been tipped off by the national coach Hermann Schridde who had spotted the budding star in regional competition. The Detmold-born rider admitted in those early days in the limelight he was "possessed" by riding even though he had a distinguished career alternative in economics had he wished to pursue it. Beerbaum parted company with Schockemohle in the aftermath of that first success at the Olympics but was soon given the backing of a new patron Alexander Moksel, who made his fortune in the meat industry. The young prodigy fleshed out into the finished product and in 1992 he hit the top again - this time at the Barcelona Games in the individual performance. It was a flawless performance by Beerbaum who did not hit a single obstacle. The articulate and rock-steady Beerbaum was now the undisputed equestrian star of a country that still likes to consider itself the best in the world in the art of horsemanship. Two years after Barcelona he won his first World Championship at individual level - to sit alongside team titles in 1990 and 1998. Meanwhile, Beerbaum pooled his economics training with his mastery of the equine world to set up a lucrative stud farm in Riesenbeck, Westphalia that has given him financial security. That nest egg is, of course, regularly supplemented by cash prizes which so far total 487,000 dollars with Grand Prix wins at Aachen, Rotterdam, Gothenburg, Hertogenbosch, Paris, Modena, Hickstead and Calgary. And Beerbaum made it an Olympic treble in Atlanta when he again topped the podium - this time in the team event. A broken collar-born sustained in Sweden in July has complicated his preparations for Sydney but his berth in the German team is secure.
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