She wore start number 32, but in the end she was the very first to get out of the wavy but not terribly rough sea off Fukuoka at Seaside Momochi Beach Park in changeable weather: Leonie Beck has herself and German swimming in the first open water competition of the World Championships in Japan immediately given the first gold medal.
The 26-year-old from Augsburg, who competes for SV 05 Würzburg but lives and trains in Italy, came out of the 26-degree water after ten kilometers and 2:02:34 hours. A victory sign here, thumbs up there, at the award ceremony she held the World Championships mascot “Sealight”, modeled after a dolphin, in her left hand and the gold medal in her right. And she looked so relaxed and confident, as if she had planned nothing other than winning the title here in this marathon.
After the sprint to the finish line, Beck no longer noticed that the ten-kilometer distance in the sea was a hell of a ride when she smiled at the cameras. A furious finish had led Beck to the title, when she broke out of the group of four to the right after the last buoy and escaped to the front. Chelsea Gubecka of Australia was 4.1 seconds back to take the Silver, with USA’s Katie Grimes taking the Bronze, 8.3 seconds back. Co-favourites Sharon van Rouwendaal (Netherlands) and Ana Marcela Cunha (Brazil) finished fourth and fifth empty-handed, while Beck’s Würzburg team-mate Lea Boy finished seventh.
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Index finger up: Leonie Beck has achieved her goal.
(Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP)
In her first reaction, she confessed that Beck had exhausted herself completely: “The first half was ok, I tried to save a bit of energy, that was my plan too, but in the end it was very, very hard to be there I swam for my life,” said Beck, whose tactic of swimming in midfield first, avoiding exhausting duels and having to do little management work at the top had paid off. And the conditions weren’t exactly easy: the offshore wind made it difficult for the swimmers, and “you can’t see much underwater, it’s a brown soup,” as Beck said later.
In the days before, the water quality in Fukuoka Bay had become an issue after heavy rainfall, the German group around Beck and Florian Wellbrock skipped the first training session because of fear of germs and dirt in the open water. “When we came out of the warm-up yesterday, we were all brown and green,” said Beck. But the limits were not exceeded in the women’s race either, “so everything is fine. And qualifying for the Olympic Games was all I wanted,” said the winner. Only the top three will secure a ticket for Paris 2024 at this World Cup, it is also one of the main goals of the German team. It was also the first German world championship title over ten kilometers for women since 2001.
“You can’t see much underwater, it’s a brown soup,” Beck said later
Another advantage for Beck is that she can theoretically forego the unfavorably scheduled World Championships in February in Qatar, where further Olympic places will be awarded, and can focus fully on Paris. “Basically, no one wants to start there because it completely breaks down the methodology that has been in place for years,” national coach Bernd Berkhahn said before the race with a view to Qatar.
After World Championship silver in Budapest a year ago on the same route, Beck has now achieved the greatest success of her career in Fukuoka – in Budapest she had also already won gold with the relay. Its development is obvious, and it leads directly to Ostia, the seaside resort in Italy where Beck has been living for almost two years after completing her media communication studies. There she trains in the group of the Italian Olympic champion and world champion Gregorio Paltrinieri, which also pushed her development enormously in the tactical area.
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Overjoyed: Leonie Beck also benefited in Fukuoka from her move to a new training group in Italy.
(Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP)
She does a bit more strength training there, more stabilization, and more emphasis is placed on warming up, Beck reported on Thursday before the start of the World Cup. She completes ten training sessions a week in Ostia, between 70 and 100 kilometers, with the sea on her doorstep. “And sometimes we set a course there with buoys and train,” says Beck: “The magic formula is swimming a lot.”
The training group has become family for her, a second home after she hadn’t made much headway in Würzburg. She also left for Tallinn with this group a good three weeks ago, to the first high-altitude training camp, followed by a second in Nagano to get used to the time change. Only then did she join the German team, which was preparing in Kumamoto. Beck’s special path doesn’t bother anyone there, and her success now proves her right.
And the decision she made years ago to switch to open water, because she had lost interest in the pool and no longer saw the chance to advance to the top of the world there, is now turning out to be spot on. “I think I was the one who wanted it the most,” said Beck after her gold race in Fukuoka. A good omen for Florian Wellbrock and Co. is their success anyway. On Sunday morning, the Olympic champion will also start over 10 kilometers in the same place – and wants to achieve something very similar to Beck’s.
