This is undoubtedly the first time that Philippe Guerdat has had to select his own son. That's why he always refused to take over the management of the Swiss team, but this time the coach of the French team had no other option. Steve Guerdat, individual Olympic champion in 2012, has just won another personal medal at the Tryon World Equestrian Games and is now in second place in the Longines FEI world ranking. He’s indispensable. And he is not the only Olympic champion on this Riders Europe short-list, which includes two gold medalists (team): the Frenchman Kevin Staut (Rio 2016) and Ben Maher (London 2012) of Great Britain. Within this team, we also note the selection of a team world champion (Caen 2014) in Maikel van der Vleuten of the Netherlands, and two World Cup winners, the solid Germans Daniel Deusser and Christian Ahlmann. Five of these six riders have been world number one at one time in their career. Two other in form riders complete the list on the senior side: the Italian Lorenzo de Luca and Spain’s Eduardo Alvarez Aznar. Philippe Guerdat will have to choose four names from among these eight.
To complete his team, he will also have to select a fifth rider, a "U25", from between Britain’s Harry Charles, the son of the 2012 Olympic champion, Peter Charles, and the young Frenchman Edward Levy.