Canadian Olympic Riders Megan Lane, Belinda Trussell Now Coached by Former Successful USA Team Coach Debbie McDonald
2 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on Canadian Olympic Riders Megan Lane, Belinda Trussell Now Coached by Former Successful USA Team Coach Debbie McDonald
WELLINGTON, Florida, Jan. 26, 2022–The loss of Debbie McDonald as United States dressage team coach has become the gain of two Canadian Olympic riders at the Global Dressage Festival of 12 weeks of international competition ahead of the world championships in Herning, Denmark.
Megan Lane, 30, who rode Caravella on the Canadian team at the 2016 Rio Games, and Belinda Trussell, at the 2004 Athen Olympics with Royan and on Anton on the 2016 squad, opted to train with Debbie after US Equestrian did not renew her coaching contract. The decision followed America’s historic Olympic team silver at Tokyo.
Adrienne Lyle, who rode Salvino on the Tokyo team, has continued the long time coaching relationship with Debbie. Team mates Sabine Schut-Kery with Sanceo continues to work Christine Traurig while Steffen Peters on Suppenkasper is based in California and is not competing in Florida this winter.
Megan, successful in the North American Youth Championships from 2008 through 2012, competed Caravella up through the 2014 World Equestrian Games, on the silver medal team at the 2015 Pan American Games and the 2016 Olympics.
She began competing Zodiac for Deer Ridge Equestrian internationally in 2017 and the pair were on Canada’s team at the 2018 World Games in Tryon. After a successful 2020 including on the silver medal team at the Wellington Nations Cup, the coronavirus pandemic halted competitions.
An attempt to return to competition at Tryon in April 2021 in pursuit of a place on the team for Tokyo was stymied when entry to the United States was blocked and they were unable to earn enough qualifying scores.
Megan rides Zodiac, a KWPN gelding now 18 years old, in the CDI3* Grand Prix Thursday.
Belinda Trussell is not entered for this week’s show that in addition to the CDI has 260 horses entered in the national section, a record for the decade old Global Dressage Festival with the previous high being 239 in 2019.
In addition to two Olympics, Belinda competed for Canada at the 2002, 2010, 2014 and 2018 World Games, the 2004 World Cup Final, the 2015 Pan Ams and the 2003 open European Championships.
