Open water swimming in Japan
Leonie Beck wins World Cup gold “in brown soup”
7/15/2023 7:21 am
Beck from Augsburg helps the German Swimming Association to win its first medal at the World Championships in Fukuoka – and it’s also golden. Your final sprint makes the difference. The prospects were bleak at first because she had to shorten the training session due to heavy rain.
Leonie raised her left index finger and celebrated the greatest success of her career: The 26-year-old won the gold medal in open water swimming at the World Championships in Japan. Beck won the ten-kilometer race on Saturday with a strong final sprint, ahead of Chelsea Gubecka from Australia and Katie Grimes from the USA. On the first day of competition with precious metal decisions, the native of Augsburg gave the team of the German Swimming Association the first medal in the sea in front of the Momochi Seaside Park in Fukuoka – and then immediately gold.
“I didn’t stop fighting. I think I was the one who wanted it the most and I swam for my life,” said Beck. With the win, she already secured qualification for the Olympic Games next year in Paris. Beck made it clear how important this is in the interview zone. “I would have been happy with third place too. The main thing is that I qualified for the Olympic Games,” said Beck, who also emphasized: “Being world champion is something very special.” The Bavarian, who lives and trains in Italy, showed her top class again in mostly sunny weather with an intermittent short rain shower and a water temperature of 26.2 degrees.
It was anything but ideal for the German swimmers in southwestern Japan. After heavy rain, they skipped a first training opportunity for fear of dirt and germs in the water. Only the day before the race, Beck and the second German starter, Lea Boy, who finished seventh, tested the course for the first time. The water quality was fine on Saturday. According to Beck, the values were within the specified range, even when she said: “You don’t see much under water. It’s a brown soup.” Nevertheless, she kept the overview: Beck swam in a leading group for a long time. At first she did not show herself at the front. However, she broke away a few hundred meters from the finish. In the end, their lead over second place was 4.1 seconds. Beck clocked in at 2:02:34.0 hours.
Beck started out as a pool swimmer
She had started her career as a pool swimmer, was not happy with it and decided to focus only on the open water. The results of the recent past prove her right: last year she won the world championship silver over ten kilometers and gold in the relay with Florian Wellbrock, Oliver Klemet and Boy. In Rome, she also became European Champion over the Olympic distance. Now followed the great triumph at world level.
Thanks to the Olympic qualification, Beck now has planning security at an early stage. She does not have to prepare specifically for the unfavorably scheduled World Championships in February in Qatar, where further Olympic places will be awarded, and could even skip them. “Basically, no one wants to start there because it completely rips apart the methodology that has been in place for years,” said long-distance national coach Bernd Berkhahn, referring to the training structure of the athletes. Olympic champion Wellbrock also wants to secure his summer games ticket on Sunday (1 a.m. CEST). The 25-year-old, who won five medals in five competitions at the past World Championships, is one of the top favorites over ten kilometers.