Carl Hester: Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist to aim for seventh Games at Paris 2024
- Published
Since first competing for Team GB in 1992, Carl Hester has ridden at every Olympic Games bar Atlanta 1996
Tokyo Olympic Games on the BBC |
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Dates: 23 July-8 August Time in Tokyo: BST +8 |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button and online; Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live, Sports Extra and Sounds; live text and video clips on BBC Sport website and app. |
Olympic team dressage bronze medallist Carl Hester says he has the drive to compete in a seventh Games in 2024.
The 54-year-old, who won team gold in London in 2012 and silver four years later in Rio de Janeiro, first competed in the Games in Barcelona in 1992.
"Normally after an Olympic Games you are completely flat and you do think 'Where am I going to get the enthusiasm to do this again?'" he said.
"But I don't feel like that again this time, which is good.
"I just enjoyed it, I'm home, I'm rested, I've got a European Championships in six weeks.
"I know three years is not that long away, but I've got to be able to stay fit, keep up with the kids and my horse has got to be fit - we've got to get there on the same day together.
"There's definitely a chance. We'll see what happens," he added to BBC Radio Guernsey.
Gloucestershire-based Hester grew up and learnt to ride on the small Channel Island of Sark.
Charlotte Dujardin (left) and Charlotte Fry won team dressage bronze alongside Carl Hester in Tokyo
His success has been a great source of pride to the island, which has no cars and a population of around 500 people including members of Hester's family.
"As anybody on Sark will know, my mum and dad didn't have any interest in horses, it was born in me, this passion - I fell in love with horses and animals generally," he explained.
"I've been lucky that I've got a career in something I absolutely love, and Sark played such a big part in that in the beginning as I just enjoyed everything about living there and riding there and missed it terribly when I first came to England.
"But like so many people that are doing sport, they have to move away to go and get the training and the opportunities, and even though I had to do that and now I'm based here training other people, I still always think 'Where would I have been without life on Sark?'."
Sark's only postbox was painted gold to mark Carl Hester's 2012 Olympic success in team dressage