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“Just swim, don’t think anything”: World Cup silver winner Lea Boy – Sport

SZ: Frau Boy, would you have time for a few questions? It’s not every day that you win silver over 25 kilometers in Lupa Lake and gold in the open water relay with Florian Wellbrock at a swimming world championships.

Lea Boy: We can do that, a cold keeps me in bed at home anyway.

Oh.

Yes, 25 kilometers of swimming, then 37 degrees outside temperature, off to the air-conditioned bus and then to the air-conditioned hotel room, that was probably a bit much for the body.

Was there a small reception in Würzburg, where you have been training since moving from your home in Elmshorn in 2018 – and doing an apprenticeship as an office management clerk?

Not so far, when we returned to Frankfurt all hell broke loose at the airport, but only because there were thousands of suitcases there that didn’t belong to anyone. We then went on to Würzburg, I went to bed, on Thursday we’re off to the World Cup in Paris. Next Monday there will probably be a small celebration organized by my club SV Würzburg 05.

Are you still thinking about Lake Lupa in Budapest?

I only have good memories of the lake, where I also won the European Championship title over 25 kilometers in 2021. That’s why I started my race very positively and can easily ignore the fact that it’s such a long distance. Schwupps, the goal is there faster than you can see.

But for a non-professional it’s unthinkable to swim 25 kilometers continuously for 5 hours, 24 minutes and 15 seconds – that was your time.

Sure, but we were also very, very slow for the first 15 or 20 kilometers. It’s not tiring. It was my job to just stick to the Brazilian Olympic champion Ana Marcela Cunha, she knows exactly who is where, knows the length of the course. I swam 14 miles at her feet. You have to be careful on the last lap, especially on the last straight. Things went really well there, we were a quartet that reached the finish line within a second.

In illustrious company: silver winner Lea Boy (from left) with world champion Ana Marcela Cunha and Olympic champion Sharon van Rouwendaal at the medal ceremony…

(Photo: Attila Volgyi/Xinhua/Imago)

Cunha, the Brazilian Olympic champion from Tokyo, took gold 0.2 seconds ahead of them, third was the Dutch Olympic champion from Rio, Sharon Rouwendaal, 0.1 seconds behind them. What a finish!

You have to give everything your body has left and hope that somehow it’s enough for a medal. I could have been fourth too. But I had a good position on the outside where I could swim my way out to avoid the chaos.

Didn’t get elbows?

No, the two Olympic champions are very, very careful and fair. There are others who are more into fighting and fight harder. You know them and keep as much distance as possible.

Describe how such a stretch feels, what your head is doing, when the pain comes?

The first ten kilometers are still okay, halfway through you think: When will it finally be over? You have to be able to turn your head off to spin circles for five and a half hours. It’s just swimming, not thinking, that’s really how it is.

The refreshment station looks bizarre: Fishing rods are held into the water from the jetty, with drinks or snacks hanging at the end. How do you swim and eat at the same time?

You know roughly where your caterer is, so there’s a banana or something to drink in between. On your back you then continue to swim with one hand and in the other you have the banana or the drink. We then throw away the empty bowls or cups, I think divers in Lake Lupa took out the rubbish again.

And what else did you encounter in the open water?

At some point in the Lupasee there was quite a lot of green stuff hanging from the body. You have to do that every now and then. Otherwise I was spared a lot of what others have already experienced …

… like the twelve-time open water world champion Thomas Lurz, who reported on rats, dead turtles or wooden pallets with nails in the sea?

Swimming World Championships: ... and four days before with Florian Wellbrock (left), Leonie Beck (2nd from right) and Oliver Klemet - and gold around the neck.

… and four days before with Florian Wellbrock (left), Leonie Beck (2nd from right) and Oliver Klemet – and relay gold around the neck.

(Photo: Giorgio Scala / Insidefoto / Imago)

We only had jellyfish once in Abu Dhabi, otherwise I’ve always been lucky that the water was clean. In the beginning I had a big problem with fish. When I was 15 or 16, it was my first adult race, also in Abu Dhabi. There were all the fish, big, small, thousands. Even as we jumped in. I found it so bad that I closed my eyes the whole time under water.

Why do you actually do such a water marathon?

Unfortunately, I just slipped into this ultra-long stretch (laughs). At the 2019 World Cup, at the 2021 European Championship with victory, now with World Cup silver. The ten and five kilometers are held in higher esteem, and in contrast to the 25 kilometers, so are the Olympic distances. In the direction of Paris 2024, my focus is clearly on the ten kilometers.

And at the European Championships in Rome this August, where the open water competitions are planned in the sea off the coast of Ostia?

I also qualified for the pool competitions there, over 800 and 400 meters, but we canceled that. I swim five and ten kilometers in Rome. And the 25 kilometers? I don’t know yet whether I’ll do that to myself.

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