U.S. Vaulting Team Posts Medal-Winning Results at CHIO Aachen

Aachen, Germany - The U.S. Vaulting contingent posted fantastic results at this year's CHIO in Aachen, Germany, with a full complement of athletes. The "developing team" was made up of a mixture of seasoned veterans and vaulters new to performing at CHIO Aachen. The squad won two medals at the world's most competitive vaulting competition, and has had solid results through three days of classes. Mary McCormick gave a very impressive performance through three days of competition in the Female Individual Classification. On Friday, she and Gustafsson with longeur Lars Hansen posted a score of 8.227 for fourth place in the freestyle class. She improved on Saturday in the second classification freestyle test with a score of 8.240. On Sunday, she received a final score of 7.901 for the overall Bronze medal in the Individual Female classification.

The second Bronze medal for USA Vaulting came in the new Pas de Deux class with USA Vaulting veterans Devon Maitozo and Rosalind Ross. They started out with a score of 7.805 on Friday vaulting with equine partner Flashlight and longeur Alexandra Knauf. On Saturday, they finished with a final score of 7.911 for the Bronze medal.

Craig Coburn, U.S. Chef d'Equipe said, "As the USA Vaulting Chef d 'Equipe at the 2011 CHIO Aachen, I am proud to say that the American team was extremely successful this weekend. With the support of the USEF, we were able to win two medals; Mary McCormick won the Bronze medal in the Ladies Individual event, while Devon Maitozo and Rosalind Ross won the Bronze medal, this is also the first time the U.S. has competed internationally in Pas de Deux."

The U.S. Nation Cup team of Mary McCormick, George Joseph Gadd and the Woodside team posted a score of 7.013 for a fifth place in the final results of the Nationenpreis.

On the opening day, the United States team from Mt. Eden Sun placed fourth in the compulsory test on equine teammate Jarl with longeur Lasse Kristensen. They posted a final score of 6.620 in the Preis der Sparkasse class. On Sunday, the team improved their score to 7.205 for a second-place finish in the freestyle test.

"These victories were particularly sweet considering both of our full Teams and several of our promising individual vaulters are quite young," said Coburn. "Our success in the 2011 CHIO Aachen is a very promising look into the future of high performance vaulting in the United States."

For full results, please visit here. For more information on the USA Vaulting team, please visit www.usef.org.

For information on all the events at the 2011 CHIO Aachen, visit http://www.usefnetwork.com/featured/2011CHIOAachen/.