Wednesday 4th August 2021
“Tried everything, risked everything”
Beck swims to fifth place
It is a strong performance that Leonie Beck makes over the ten kilometers in the Odaiba Marine Park. In some places she even leads the field in the water, always staying in the top group in extreme conditions. In the end, the woman from Würzburg comes in fifth – and is very satisfied with it.
The German open water swimmers get started well. On the day before the start of world champion Florian Wellbrock over ten kilometers, Leonie Beck cannot reward herself with a medal as fifth. Finnia Wunram is tenth. The conditions are extreme.
Leonie Beck was unable to reward himself with a medal for a courageous fight in an extreme open water race. The 24-year-old from Würzburg hit the fifth place after 1: 59: 35.1 hours over ten kilometers on Wednesday night. Gold went to Ana Marcela Cunha from Brazil, ahead of Rio Olympic champion Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands and Australian Kareena Lee. Cunha was 4.3 seconds faster than Beck. Finnia Wunram from Magdeburg took tenth place as the second German starter.
24 hours before World Champion Florian Wellbrock’s race on Thursday night in Germany, Beck’s appearance also encouraged the men’s competition. After his World Cup title in 2019, Wellbrock is one of the gold candidates. “It went better than I thought. I tried everything, risked everything,” said Leonie Beck. “A fifth place at the Olympic Games, I can be proud of that. I think it was the best open water race of my career.”
As strenuous as a desert march
In challenging conditions, which the team doctor and Leonie Beck’s father Alexander Beck compared with the exertions of a march through the desert, his daughter stayed in the top group from the start. “The burden is already immense,” said record world champion Thomas Lurz as a Eurosport expert. At 5.30 a.m. local time, one hour before the start of the race, the official water temperature was already 29.3 degrees.
Halfway through the race, Leonie Beck and the American Ashley Twichell were in second place behind the Brazilian Cunha, who was already 16 at the Olympic premiere of the discipline in Beijing. Wunram was fifth at this point.
In the very tough race, the provision of drinks at the six stations was of particular importance, as all protagonists had previously affirmed. Beck came through well – and tore the field apart due to an increase in pace after three quarters of the race. But the experienced competition countered strongly. For the multiple world champion Cunha it was the longed-for first Olympic medal, it became gold.
In addition to world champion Wellbrock, his Magdeburg team-mate Rob Muffels will also be at the start on Thursday night. They want to win the first open water aces medal in nine years. In 2012, Lurz won silver in London, the last Olympic open water medal to date for the German Swimming Association.
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