Beach volleyball Olympic champion Laura Ludwig and her partner Margareta Kozuch missed the semi-finals at the Summer Games in Tokyo. In the quarter-finals, the duo from Hamburg was defeated by the world number five Alix Klineman / April Ross from the USA 0: 2 (19:21, 19:21). “It’s bitter, it was a close game,” said Ludwig on ZDF. “It was evenly balanced for a very long time, nobody moved away, so in retrospect it is all the more bitter. There is also a small smile, but on the whole you have to let that sink in for now.”
Of the originally three German duos in Japan, only the team of Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler is now in the competition. The World Cup runners-up will meet Vyacheslav Krasilnikow and Oleg Stojanowski from Russia in their quarter-finals on Wednesday (3 p.m. CEST) in a new edition of the World Cup finals from two years ago.
Against the last remaining US team around Ross, who was highly decorated with two Olympic and three World Cup medals, Ludwig / Kozuch fell 2: 4 first in a two-point deficit in again great warmth and high humidity. With the onset of rain they equalized again at 7: 7 and in turn moved away to 11: 8. This advantage did not hold at first either and the set remained balanced until 19:19. Then the USA used a serve that was minimally too long and a somewhat restrained attack by Kozuch to lead the sentence.
The second movement began similarly. Ludwig / Kozuch fell 3: 5 behind, stayed present and equaled to 7: 7. At 9: 8 they took their first lead in this round and expanded it to 10: 8. Again, the buffer did not last long in the encounter at a high level. Both teams did not give each other anything, and the service errors from the first encounters were limited at Ludwig / Kozuch. Two rallies with great commitment from Ludwig brought the USA a decisive two-point lead to 18:16. At the second match point for the USA, Ludwig stretched in vain.
More news from Tokyo
Canoeing: The three-time Canadian Olympic champion Sebastian Brendel is also reaching for a medal in Tokyo. With his two-man partner Tim Hecker (Berlin), the 33-year-old won his semi-final over 1000 m and thus moved into the final. The finals will take place on Tuesday (4.53 a.m. CEST) on the Sea Forest Waterway. After his success in C1 at the 2012 Games in London and double gold five years ago in Rio, Brendel is one of the DKV’s most promising candidates. The Potsdam-based competitor will also be competing in the Canoe One from Friday, and in this boat class he could become the first athlete to become Olympic champion for the third time in a row.
Olympic debutant Jacob Schopf drove to the Tokyo finals in a kayak single. The 22-year-old came third in the first semi-final run over 1000 meters on Tuesday and is now fighting for his first Olympic medal in the final round of the top eight on the Sea Forest Waterway. Sabrina Hering-Pradler (Hanover) and Tina Dietze (Leipzig) also made it into the final as fourth in the semifinals in the two-man kayak over 500 m. Caroline Arft (Essen) and Sarah Brüßler (Karlsruhe) failed on the same route in the semifinals.
athletics: Former European triple jump champion Max Heß (Chemnitz) also retired from qualifying at his second Olympic Games. The 25-year-old did not go over 16.69 m on Tuesday morning and thus missed the final in Rio as he did five years ago. The medal decision on Thursday (4 a.m. CEST) went to the Portuguese Pedro Pichardo as the best. The native Cuban shone with a strong 17.71 m. Christian Taylor (USA), who won gold in 2012 and 2016, is missing after an Achilles tendon rupture.
Over 1500 m, the German champion Robert Farken (Leipzig) made it to the semi-finals. The 23-year-old finished fifth in his preliminary run in 3: 36.61 minutes and thus reached the semi-finals on Thursday (1 p.m. CEST) directly. Amos Bartelsmeyer (Frankfurt) was eliminated in eleventh place in 3: 38.36 minutes. The fastest on Tuesday morning was the Belgian Ismael Debjani (3: 36.00) ahead of Kenya’s world champion Timothy Cheruiyot (3: 36.01).
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