Wednesday 4th August 2021
Great tremors, new hope
That was the Olympic night on Wednesday
There was little to win for German athletes during the night – except for hope: there were no medal candidates on the way, but the wrestlers are fighting for a new chance. The team’s biggest gold candidate, on the other hand, has to tremble badly. And of course the next world record falls.
Athletics: The American Sydney McLaughlin ran gold over the 400 meter hurdles in a world record time. The 21-year-old improved the record she had set herself to 51.46 seconds three days before her birthday. In the finals, McLaughlin relegated her compatriot and 2016 Olympic champion, Dalilah Muhammad, to second place. In 51.58 seconds, Muhammad also stayed below the old record of 51.90 seconds set by McLaughlin at the US Trials in June. Bronze went to Femke Bol from the Netherlands (52.03). For the German champion Carolina Krafzik, the semifinals were the final destination. In 54.95 seconds, the woman from Sindelfingen was fourth in her run on Monday.
Athletics II: Gold favorite Johannes Vetter struggled to reach the final in the javelin throw. The 28-year-old from Offenburg secured the direct ticket for the medal fight on Saturday (1 p.m. / CEST) with 85.64 meters in his third and last attempt in the qualification. The Olympic fourth in 2016, who clearly leads the world’s best list of the year with 96.29 meters, looked unsettled. “Since the competitions before the Olympics there has been a bit of a worm in there, what does the worm mean, I can’t get the right timing, the right rhythm to say that everything fits together and then it hits the front,” said Vetter . For the finals, something must “definitely come.” In the end, however, Vetter had the second best distance. With the first attempt over 84.41 meters, Julian Weber from Mainz also made it straight to the final. Bernhard Seifert from Potsdam, however, retired with 68.30 meters without a chance.
Athletics III: Germany’s number one decathlete is satisfied with his debut at the Games. “So far it’s been fun,” said the 23-year-old world champion after the first three disciplines of his Olympic premiere. After a solid 11.22 seconds over 100 meters, the Mainz man had his personal best of 7.36 meters in the long jump – 17 centimeters more than his 2019 World Cup victory in Doha. In the shot put it was only enough to 14.55 meters and in total to 2474 points and 17th place. “I’m satisfied with the first two disciplines, the long jump was great,” said Kaul. “Bullet goes like this, but is not an outlier downwards.” The 2017 World Cup third, Kai Kazmirek, is even four positions ahead of Kaul with 2528 points after 11.09 seconds in the sprint, 7.48 meters in the long jump and 14.46 meters in the shot put. “It can go on like this,” said the 30-year-old veteran. The medal fight is dominated by Damien Warner, who had the best results in the three disciplines and scored 2966 points as number one.
Table tennis: As expected, Germany’s table tennis women clearly lost the semi-finals against top favorite China and are fighting for bronze. Han Ying, Petrissa Solja and Shan Xiaona remained far from the hoped-for sensation against the number one seeded Asians at 3-0. Tomorrow (4 a.m. CEST) the 2016 Olympic runners-up will play against the fourth-seeded selection from Hong Kong for third place. In the semifinals, the number three German women’s selection by national coach Jie Schöpp had no chance. Solja and Shan Xiaona were only able to equalize the first set in the 0: 3 (9:11, 2:11, 4:11) match against world number one and Tokyo Olympic champion Chen Meng and Wang Manyu. Han Ying lost against the finalist in the singles of these summer games, Sun Yingsha, also 0: 3 (6:11, 4:11, 9:11). At the end of the day Solja put up a lot of resistance against Chen Meng and won the only set at 1: 3 (11: 5, 4:11, 9:11, 11:13).
Wrestling: The three-time wrestling world champion Frank Stäbler is still fighting for a medal at the end of his career. The Musberger reached one of the small finals in the weight class up to 67 kilograms via the hope lap. In the evening (from 12.30 p.m. / CEST) he meets the Georgian Ramas Soidze. In the round of hope, Stäbler defeated the Colombian Julian Stiven Horta Acevedo with a clear 8-0. At the games in London in 2012 and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Germany’s longstanding flagship wrestler missed a medal. It would now be the worthy end of his impressive career. Stäbler’s Greco-Roman colleague Denis Kudla is also reaching for Olympic bronze again. The 26-year-old from Schifferstadt, who had already taken third place five years ago, won 10: 2 in the hope round against the Kyrgyz Atabek Asisbekow after being 0: 2 behind.
Swim: Open water swimmer Leonie Beck was not rewarded with a medal after a courageous race. The 24-year-old from Würzburg posted fifth over ten kilometers. Gold went to Ana Marcela Cunha from Brazil, ahead of Rio Olympic champion Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands and Australian Kareena Lee. Finnia Wunram took tenth place as the second German starter. In extreme conditions, Beck made a strong appearance in the early morning local time in Tokyo’s Odaiba Marine Park and swam with the front from the start. The 2016 Olympic participant in the pool missed the third medal for the German swimmers at these summer games. Before that, Florian Wellbrock and his fiancée Sarah Köhler had both won bronze in the 1500 meter freestyle pool. Wellbrock also starts the ten kilometers on Thursday night.
Canoe: The German kayak boats with the duo Max Hoff / Jacob Schopf and the one with Jule Hake and Sabrina Hering-Pradler paddled straight to the semi-finals. The co-favorite in the two-man kayak over 1000 meters showed a good performance on the Sea Forest Waterway with second place in the preliminary run. In the final sprint, the duo drove confidently past the Slovaks, but the victorious Australians could no longer be intercepted. Schopf narrowly missed the medal with fourth place in the singles final on Tuesday. In the women’s kayak one over 500 meters, Jule Hake from Lünen made it into the semi-finals as third place. Sabrina Hering-Pradler from Hanover was second behind top favorite Lisa Carrington from New Zealand and also made it directly to the semifinals. At the Olympic premiere of her canoeing discipline over 200 meters, Lisa Jahn from Berlin made it to the semi-finals via the quarter-finals.
Skateboard: The 14-year-old skateboarder Lilly Stoephasius took a very good ninth place at her Olympic premiere and only just missed the final. The Berliner got 38.37 points in the park discipline and missed the eighth place required to take part in the finals by just 3.22 points. Stoephasius had achieved her number of points in the first of three qualifying runs. On the next two attempts, the teenager fell. Each participant had three runs of 45 seconds each in qualification. Japan’s skateboard star Sakura Yosozumi is the first ever Olympic champion in the park discipline. The vice-world champion prevailed in the final with 60.09 points ahead of her compatriot Kokona Hiraki, who had 59.04 points. The Japanese-born British Sky Brown secured bronze with 56.47 points.
IOC: In the case of the Belarusian sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya, the International Olympic Committee set up a disciplinary commission. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said this should establish the facts in the scandal surrounding the alleged kidnapping of the athlete from Tokyo attempted by Belarusian authorities. The athletics head coach of Belarus and the deputy director of the national training center are to be responsible. The 24-year-old has now received a humanitarian visa from Poland and left the Olympic city on Wednesday.
Corona: The entire Greek synchronized swimming team went to a quarantine hotel after several positive corona tests. As the Olympic organizers announced, four swimmers and one supervisor tested positive at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Of the seven other team members, some were classified as contact persons. All twelve have therefore already moved out of the athletes’ village in consultation with the National Olympic Committee of Greece, OK spokesman Masa Takaya confirmed. The team can therefore no longer participate in synchronized swimming. According to the Olympic organizers, there were 29 new coronavirus cases in connection with the summer games. This is a daily high since data was recorded on July 1st. So far, this has been 27. In total, the number of corona infections around the Games is now 327, including 29 athletes.
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