Wednesday, August 8, 2012

British newspaper accidentally hails Dutch dressage team


The nation is going gold-medal crazy at the moment as Great Britain continue to shine at the Olympic Games, but part of our newspapers' efforts to join in the mood of national pride has gone wrong.

The gold medal Team GB won in dressage was Britain's 20th at London 2012 (they added two more later in the day), eclipsing their total of 19 set at Beijing. It was also a first ever medal for the Brits of any colour in the discipline, which has traditionally been dominated by Germany.

But several newspapers - including the Daily Express, Daily Star and Mirror - accidentally pictured another dressage team instead of Britain's gold medallists.

The Express's front page picture for example, shown above, is clearly of the bronze-winning Netherlands team.

The faces of the British dressage team are not recognisable in the same way as the likes of fellow Olympian Sir Chris Hoy, who also won gold on Tuesday — but despite that, there were a few hints for the sub-editors.

The orange on their clothing could have been one. The bronze medals around their necks could have been another.

The gaffe was quickly spotted and passed around on Twitter, where the likes of BBC presenter Clare Balding pointed out the slight to the British stars.

And 'Wednesday's Express' was trending on the social networking site — presumably not for the reasons the paper might have hoped.

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