Jens Lass Dokkan sets sight on seventh Paralympic Games

If selected, the 58-year-old will be the only rider to have competed at every Games since the sport was introduced.

Next summer’s Para Dressage competition at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will be seventh time since the sport made its debut in Atlanta 1996.

If selected, Norway’s Jens Lass Dokkan will be the only rider on the start list to have competed at every Games since the sport was introduced.

Since Atlanta, the 58-year-old has picked up a trio of bronze medals in Sydney in 2000, and a silver in Beijing in 2008. There have been few silvers and bronzes at European and World level too, but it was only this summer, at the Longines FEI European Championships in Rotterdam, that Dokkan finally made the top of the podium at a continental championships, taking two golds in the grade I competition, riding his new horse, Aladdin.

“That was a great experience”, he said, “but also terrible. I was nervous and felt a lot of pressure after my good results earlier in the summer. I didn’t sleep very well, and I didn’t eat anything the days before the first competition. But the facilities and the show ground in Rotterdam were great and of course, I am very pleased and proud of my achievements.”

Aladdin came into Dokkan’s life by chance, having been spotted on a for sale listing.

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