Team, Open

Although the competition format was unchanged, team numbers were reduced from four to three, so all riders scores were to be counted towards the medal standings. An injury to a horse causing a withdrawal could mean the difference between a medal and last place on the leader board.

After the Netherlands and then Great Britain had challenged the usual regime for the first four Olympic cycles of the century, Germany had re-established their traditional place at the head of the dressage rankings and their combinations made up half of the top 20 in the world. Germany approached Tokyo having won gold at the 2017 and 2019 European Championship and at the hurricane-interrupted World Equestrian Games of 2018. In fact, with the experienced trio of Isabell Werth, Jessica Von Bredow-Werndl and Dorothee Schneider making the German team, more interest settled on which of five nations would fill the podium positions behind them.

Schneider, recently recovered from a broken collarbone that was caused when one of her possible Olympic horses had collapsed and died of an Aortic rupture when the pair were doing a lap of honour after a competition in Pforzheim, provided Germany with a good start. This was built upon by the veteran Werth and then by a spectacular performance from Bredow-Werndl that confirmed a German team as Olympic champion for the 13th time in the 16th Summer Olympic Games since the event was restored in 1964.

Behind Germany in a best ever finish of second place came a US team that included two former German riders in Steffen Peters and Sabine Schut-Kery. Schut-Kery made the difference between silver and bronze for the Americans with an impressive performance on her horse Sanceo. Great Britain, led by three-time Olympic champion Charlotte Dujardin, finished in a clear third place, with Denmark and the Netherlands finishing well ahead of the other finalists.