THE French national anthem, ‘La Marseillaise’, rang out again around the Deodoro Olympic Equestrian Centre when France won their second team gold on Wednesday, matching their eventing team’s victory last week.

In what German ace Ludger Beerbaum later described as a ‘rollercoaster’ of a competition, the USA won silver, but the bronze medal went to a two-way jump off between Canada and Germany.

Four teams - home-crowd favourites Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands and USA - had started the day on level pegging, but another Guilherme Jorge designed track and a tight time allowed whittled the contenders down.

Numbers were already reduced as Beezie Madden’s Cortes C was ruled out in the morning with a tendon injury picked up during Tuesday’s qualifier.

Nonetheless, her American teammates of Lucy Davis (Barron), Kent Farrington (Voyeur) - both making their first Olympic appearance - and McLain Ward (Azur) rallied to finish on five faults after the first round.

However no-one could overtake the French, who moved up from overnight fifth place.

Roger Yves Bost (Sydney Une Prince); the 11th hour substitute Phillippe Rozier (Rahotep De Toscane) and Kevin Staut (Reveur Du Hurtebise) added only two time penalties from their three rounds on Wednesday, leaving them as the deserving gold medal winners.

Coincidentally, Rozier’s father Jean-Marcel was on the victorious French show jumping team, the country’s only previous gold medal, back at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 on Bayard De Maupas.

That meant their fourth rider, Penelope Leprevost, who was jumped out of the saddle by Flora De Mariposa in the opening round but could continue in the team competition, was not required to jump.

Flora de Mariposa was one of two show jumping horses to have colicked at the Games (Michael Whitaker’s ride Cassionata was the other) but recovered in time to jump on Sunday. Although the British team challenge fell away, both Nick Skelton (Big Star) and Ben Maher (Tic Tac) made it through to Friday’s final.

With both the Dutch and valiant Brazilian hopes fading also, it left Germany and Canada, tied on eight faults after the first round, to jump off for the bronze medal.

Canada’s first rider, the French-born Yann Candele (First Choice 15) and Amy Millar (Heros), daughter of Ian ‘Captain Canada’ Millar, each had a fence down and even the clear jumped by Tiffany Foster, riding Ben Maher’s London team gold ex-horse Tripple X, was not enough to fend off the Germans.

Both of their first two riders, Christian Ahlmann (Taloubet Z) and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (Fibonacci), yet another last-minute substitute, jumped clear and the hunt for the bronze medal was all over when their third rider Daniel Deusser and First Class soared clear over the final fence.

“Now there are two gold medals in the family!” said a delighted Rozier, speaking at the press conference afterwards.