CO DOWN show jumper Conor Swail and the 15-year-old gelding Count Me In lie in third place after the first competition at the 2022 Longines FEI Jumping World Cup Finals in Leipzig, Germany.

Over a tough 1.60m Table C course, the combination, who won the North American League on their way to qualifying for the finals, were one of nine clears in 67.06 seconds to sit third of the 35 competitors ahead of tomorrow’s second competition.

Tipperary’s Denis Lynch and the 15-year-old stallion Cristello finished with one fence down in a time of 71.43. With three seconds added for each fence down, Lynch finished on 74.43 putting him into 21st place. Switzerland’s Martin Fuchs and Chaplin hold the lead after jumping clear in 65.11, ahead of Austria’s Max Kühner in second with Elekric Blue P (66.19).

Conor Swail and Denis Lynch are bidding to make history this weekend in Leipzig. Eddie Macken, Trevor Coyle, Jessica Kurten and Bertram Allen have all finished on the World Cup Final podium in the past but as of yet, no Irish rider has taken the coveted top prize in the 42-year history of the competition.

Scores from today’s opening competition will be carried forward to tomorrow’s (Friday) second round, before the new Longines FEI World Cup champion is crowned following Sunday’s final decider.

Click here for the full result from today's first round.

Points format

The winner of each competition gets one point more than the number of starters, so in this instance it is 35 + 1, while the second placed gets two points less than the winner, the third placed three points less than the winner, and so on.

After the second competition on Friday, points are transformed into penalties. The athlete with the highest number of points after two competitions will start Sunday’s final on zero penalties. For all other athletes the number of penalties will be calculated by multiplying with the coefficient of 0.50 the difference between their number of points and the points of the leading athlete.

Sunday’s final will take place over two rounds with the top 30 riders. The 20 best qualify for the second round. The overall winner will be the rider with the lowest number of penalties after the final round. If there is a tie for first place, there will be a jump-off against the clock over a reduced course of at least six obstacles.