Isabell Werth
Germany
Equestrian Dressage
Overall Ranks
#1 among German Olympians
#1 among Equestrians
Olympic Results
1992
Individual - Silver
Team - Gold
1996
Individual - Gold
Team - Gold
2000
Individual - Silver
Team - Gold
2008
Individual - Silver
Team - Gold
2016
Individual - Silver
Team - Gold
2020
Individual - Silver
Team - Gold
2024
Individual - Silver
Team - Gold
Total
Events - 14
Gold - 8
Silver - 6
Isabell Regina Werth was born on July 21, 1969 in Issum, West Germany, and competed in her first international event, the European Championships, in 1989, right around her 20th birthday, and she remains active to this day.
Her first Olympic experience came in Barcelona in 1992, riding Gigolo. In the team event, each team used 4 riders, with the top 3 scores counting toward the final team score. Germany had the top 4 overall riders, but only got to count the top 3, including Werth, who was #2 overall, and they won the gold medal by 482 points, more than 10% more than their nearest opponent, the Netherlands.
The top 16 riders from the team event were entered into the individual event, with a max of 3 per nation. Werth was only 6 points behind defending champ Nicole Uphoff-Becker going into the final, but in the final performance, Uphoff-Becker had a dominant performance, winning the gold by 75 points over Werth, who took the silver in her first Olympics.
She was back to compete in Atlanta in 1996, but Uphoff-Becker failed to make the team that year, so Werth was now the top rider. She led the German team to another gold medal in the team event, though the final score was much closer, with a margin of only 116 points over the Netherlands, who had the #2 and #3 overall riders in the event, only behind Werth.
The individual event was a little different that year. The top 25 riders were advanced into a semifinal round, with the top 14 then advanced to the final round, which had music added. The winner was determined by adding the scores from all 3 rounds together. Werth was #1 after the team event, but fell to #2 behind Anky van Grunsven of the Netherlands after the semifinal round. In the final, she and Gigolo performed to the song "Just a Gigolo", and got the highest score by more than 3 points, which moved them back into first and earned Werth her first individual gold medal.
She was once again back to perform in Sydney in 2000, in Gigolo's last performance before retirement. She again led Germany to the team gold medal and was the highest scorer in the event, but this time the margin had shrunk again, to only 53 points. It was the 5th straight Olympics where Germany or West Germany had won the gold, and the third straight gold in the event for Werth.
She was the top qualifier into the individual event, which followed the same format as 1996, but after the semifinal round, she had again fallen behind van Grunsven. This time, van Grunsven would have the highest score of the final round by far, and Werth was unable to overcome the deficit, and ended up taking the silver medal.
After Gigolo's retirement, Werth rode a horse named Antony for the next few years, but failed to see the same success as she had on Gigolo. She performed in the 2004 World Cup on Apache, but only finished 9th, and was not selected for the 2004 Olympic team. Over the next couple of years, she switched back and forth between two horses name Warum Nicht and Satchmo, and began to start seeing success again, and was put back on the Olympic team for 2008 riding Satchmo.
Germany had managed to keep their gold medal streak alive without her in 2004, but having her back in 2008 was definitely a big help. The scoring system was different now, but Werth still had the top score in the team event, and again led Germany to the gold medal, again edging out the Netherlands, this time by 1.167 points in the new scoring system.
Werth was leading at the beginning of the individual event thanks to her strong performance in the team event, then had the highest score in the semifinal round, which put her into the final with the lead. Van Grunsven, however, dominated the final round again, winning her third straight individual gold medal, leaving Werth with the silver for the third time in her career.
In 2009, her horse tested positive for a banned substance at a local event, resulting in a 6-month suspension for Werth. By 2012, Satchmo had retired, and she was again trying to find the right horse, resulting in her missing the Olympic team again. In 2013, she was suspended again when her new horse, El Santo, tested positive for another banned substance.
She continued to ride after her suspension, and in 2016 she made the Olympic team again, this time on Weihegold Old. In her absence, the Germans had been upset in 2012 by Great Britain, so they were happy to have her back. She had the second-highest score in the team event, behind Charlotte Dujardin of Great Britain, but Germany was stronger overall, and won the gold by 3.341 points over the Brits, the fifth team gold and 6th overall of Werth's career.
This time, the scoring in the individual event was determined only by the score in the final round event set to music, without the previous round scores being added on. Dujardin's specialty was the music section, and she beat Werth by 4.786 points, leaving Werth with her 4th individual silver medal.
She switched horses again in 2019, this time to Bella Rose 2, and continued to see success on her new steed, making her 6th Olympic team in 2020. In the team event that took place in Toyko in 2021, Germany won easily by 431 points in a return to the old style of scoring, with Werth having the second-highest score, behind Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, a new teammate.
The individual event was competely separate this year, with 60 riders competing in groups of 10, with the top 2 from each group, plus the 6 next-highest scorers advancing to the final round of 18. Werth won her group with the #2 score overall, behind only Bredow-Werndl, and the pair finished in the same places after the final round as well, with Werth losing by 2.075 points to take a fifth silver medal. She also became only the third Olympian in history to win medals at 6 different Olympic Games.
Bella Rose 2 retired after the Tokyo Olympics, so Werth again had to change horses, this time to Wendy de Fontaine, and she qualified again for the Olympic team to compete in Paris in 2024. In the team event, von Bredow-Werndl had the highest score again, and Werth was #3 overall, and Germany won another gold medal, this one in a very close fight against Denmark, with the final margin being just 0.121 points under a return to the 2016 scoring system.
Werth was #2 in her group in the first part of the individual event, but that still meant automatic advancement to the final round. In the final, she made it much closer than she had in 2020, but she still lost to von Bredow-Werndl, who took her second straight gold medal, this time by 0.479 points over Werth, who won silver for the 6th time.
Werth is still actively competing, and it is very likely that she will compete in Los Angeles in 2028, which would be her 8th Olympic games. She is the only Olympian ever to medal in 7 different Olympics, and also the only Olympian to win gold in the same event 7 times. She also has competed in the most events of any Olympian ever to medal in every event, making her an easy choice to include among the greatest Olympians of all time.
