Bombs and poles fell in the Versailles palace park and when it was all over, none of the Swedish riders had cleared the course without faults.
As reigning Olympic champions in Tokyo, von Eckermann, Rolf-Göran Bengtsson, and Peder Fredricson came to Paris as medal hopefuls.
Instead, the day ended outside the podium, in sixth place in the team final.
It went badly from the start.
King Edward put his hooves lightly on the top pole of the lavender obstacle.
"A riding error"
I didn't get King Edward right on his hind legs without being driven into the bottom of the plate, and it becomes a foreleg fault. My landing is a riding error.
I needed better control, says the world number one.
Great Britain led with Sweden as fourth after the first group. The pressure was now on Bengtsson and Zuccero. A zero and Sweden was back in the fight again.
And what happened?
Already on the first obstacle, a pole fell. "RGB" held together the rest of the ride, but with eight faults ahead of Fredricson's visit to the course, it was one fault too many in the attempt to defend the team gold.
A stone in the luggage
What do you think? Why? This is not true. Now we're starting with luggage full of stones and will go over the entire course, says Bengtsson.
As seventh, the distance to bronze was one fault. On Catch Me Not, there was no room for mistakes to reach the podium.
Then "Charlie" hit the triple bar, the pole bounced up but landed on the ground. The dream of gold turned to sand.
Brash was ice-cold as the last rider and only got a time fault. He, Ben Maher, and Harry Charles stayed on two faults. USA took silver, France bronze.
Everyone actually does an okay round. But okay isn't enough at this level, not for us. We want gold. That's what counts, says Fredricson before being interrupted by the British gold celebration in the background.
It's that feeling we want, he says.
Now awaits recovery, training, and preparations for the individual jumping.
Jumping against each other
Colleagues become competitors again. Bengtsson, von Eckermann, and Fredricson are all in Versailles to jump for a medal.
Most of all, the highest one.
Yes, absolutely. I think we all do that here. Rolf also has an individual OS silver and I have two, Henrik has individual World Championship gold but no OS medal and is chasing one, says Fredricson.
