The waters of the Berlin’s Regattastrecke
Grünau turned a deeper shade of orange today as the triumphant trio
of Sharon can Rouwendaal, Ferry Wertman – champions in their own
right over 10km this week – andMarcel Schouten claimed team 5km gold at
the32nd European Championships.
It would have been no surprise to see team
coach Marcel Wouda, a former big-occasion international medley podium
placer for The Netherlands, reverting to his youth and doing a few cartwheels
along the banks of the oldest surviving sports venue in the German capital: the
Dutch tally is now three gold and a silver, the 25km for men and women tomorrow
set to bring the open water meet to a close.
On 27:59.9 in the lead at half-way the Dutch team was
followed by Greece (28:01.8) and Germany (28:03.3) at the half-way of the time
trial event in which each trio left the pontoon at 1-minute intervals. Mid-way matched end result.
Of the podium placers, Greece was third off at the
start, the Dutch 6th, followed by Germany. The 1-minute interval between teams
made it possible for spectators to have an inkling of who was catching, who was
fading but the teams themselves were too far apart to really draw on each
other.
By the close, the Dutch [Photo: Schouten, Weertman and
Wouda on training camp] had built a convincing lead, the clock stopped at
55:47.8, inside the 56:05.5 of the Greek team ofSpyridion Gianniotis, Antonios
Fokaidis and Kalliopi Araouzou.
It was down to the host’s trio: could 5km
winner Isabelle Harle and 5km medal winners Thomas Lurz and Rob
Muffels add to German’s haul at home? Yes: bronze in 56:14.8, Hungary and Italy locked
out.
What a
week it has been for the Dutch in Open Water in Berlin. It started with gold for Van Rouwendaal in the 10km,
then Weertman added to the pile with gold in the men’s 10km the next
morning before Van Rouwendaal took silver in the 5km won by Harle and
ahead of Mireia Belmonte (ESP).
Van Rouwendaal followed her team-tactic instruction
to the letter. She explained: “On the course I felt very good: I had only
one order from the guys: to keep in touch with Ferry’s feet. And that worked very well.”
For Greece, Spyridon Gianniotis, said: “The
results in the individual events here were not very good for us. But today we showed we could be
strong as a team. We trained less in this year as we are in the middle of the
Olympic cycle: we will be better next year.”
Harle was disappointed for Germany, her race
having started with a suit problem: “I had a problem with my suit [it
ripped] at the start but that can happen though It made me a little bit
nervous. On the course, I squeezed everything I had to give out of myself but
it was not enough. We
wanted gold but we couldn’t get it.”
E-MAIL: francisswim@gmail.com
FONE 5191415266
SIGA-ME PELO www.twitter.com/francisswim
FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/francisswimnatacao
WhatsApp 5197226748
No comments:
Post a Comment