Norman van de Vater competed in the individual and team three-day eventing at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games as a reserve rider promoted to the team when John Watson’s horse Cambridge Blue was injured on the cross-country schooling ground and withdrawn.

A native of Cwmbach in Wales who had moved to Midleton, Co. Cork in the mid-1960s when appointed Master of Fox Hounds of the United Hunt Club in Cork, van de Vater rode Blue Tom Tit. He suffered a crashing fall at the 15th fence of the cross-country course but courageously remounted, before Blue Tom Tit refused at the water jump. He completed the course but rib injuries sustained in the fall forced his withdrawal from the show jumping phase.