“That’s for you too, Anna!”: Love letters push Hilbert walker into a silver sensation


“That’s for you too, Anna!”
Love letters push Hilbert to a silver sensation

The 50 kilometers of walking are on the Olympic program for the last time. And Jonathan Hilbert uses the really big stage. Tactically masterfully, he only missed gold by half a minute after almost four hours. When he reaches the finish line, he feels overwhelmed – not just because of his performance.

The handwritten letters of encouragement from his friend Anna made the sensational silver walker Jonathan Hilbert burst into tears. The 26-year-old from the LG Ohra Energie provided a brilliant number at the farewell performance of the 50-kilometer walkers from the Olympic stage. 29 years after the bronze coup of today’s national coach Ronald Weigel at the Olympics in Barcelona, ​​Hilbert wrote his own chapter in German walking history.

In disbelief, he grabbed his head for the last few meters. After his tactically brilliant performance, when asked about his Anna, the feelings overwhelmed him. “It’s just special when you hear a few handwritten words from your girlfriend,” he told ARD with tears in his eyes. Every day they would have facetimed three or four hours. The couple, thousands of kilometers apart, opened the last letter together on the evening before the big competition in northern Japan. “That’s for you too, Anna!”

“Craziness”

After gold for Malaika Mihambo in the long jump and silver for discus thrower Kristin Pudenz, it was the third German athletics medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. “Crazy, I’m incredibly proud,” announced Hilbert. And national coach Weigel sums it up with emotion: “It’s an amazing feeling of happiness for the team. It’s hard to find words, Jonathan did an incredible thing.”

In the end he was only 36 seconds short of Olympic champion Dawid Tomala from Poland (3:50:08 hours). After finishing fourth in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Canadian Evan Dunfee (+51 seconds) won bronze. Carl Dohmann from Baden-Baden finished 33rd (+17: 10 minutes), Nathaniel Seiler from Bühlertal was 42nd (+25: 29).

After about five and a half hours of sleep, Hilbert immediately noticed when he woke up: “Today is a special day.” And then he offered a masterpiece in Sapporo, where the marathon and walker medal fights had been relocated for climatic reasons. Hilbert stayed in the decisive phase in a chase group that was on the heels of the towering Tomala. In the meantime, the Pole pulled away at the front with a lead of more than three minutes.

“You have to take the magazine into your own hands”

The German was in the middle of the fight for silver – together with Marc Tur (Spain), Dunfee, Joao Vieira (Portugal) and Masatora Kawano (Japan). From the quintet, about five kilometers before the end, Dunfee had to tear off first, but Hilbert held on. The newly formed quartet later disbanded. Hilbert and Tur the Spaniard accelerated, sat down and had a brief chat. Most of all, Hilbert talked.

“I told him: let’s work together. I looked at him three or four times. But there was no reaction,” reported Hilbert. “Then I thought to myself: You have to take the magazine into your own hands.” And how! Two kilometers from the finish, Hilbert parted from his cooling scarf, then his cap also flew away. Now he left Tur standing too and went towards his silver sensation.

It was a farewell performance because the International Olympic Committee removed 50 kilometers of walking from the program. It has not yet been decided whether the shortened version of 35 kilometers or a team mixed competition with two women and two men for the 50 kilometers will be included at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.

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