Canoe slalom: A historic bronze medal from Andrea Herzog – Sport

Andrea Herzog has taken a look at how medals are awarded in Tokyo over the past few days. She did an apprenticeship with teammates Sideris Tasiadis and Ricarda Funk: How they persevered next to the ceremony masters, ran the bridge over the whitewater canal and climbed onto the podium on the other side. Then they took the medals themselves from the tray and hung them on their necks, hymns, posing, camera clinking with the photographers. “Fortunately, I had three days and could see how the others do it,” said Herzog, the others had already won gold and bronze. And she doesn’t like to leave anything to chance.

Processes can be planned in advance, feelings cannot. “I think I really need a few days before I can realize that,” she said on Thursday in Tokyo, with the bronze medal around her neck, her hair still wet from her final in the Canadian. Herzog is only 21 years old and already a world champion and now also an Olympic medalist. “It is incomprehensible that everything is decided now,” she said, which then sounded as if she would like to start again right away. Their success is a good indication of the effect that arises when disciplines are included in the Olympic program.

Her bronze medal is a historic one, for the first time the C1, i.e. the canoe slalom in Canadians, is now also represented at the games for women. Herzog had already started her sport before the official decision to do so, and the idea of ​​the Olympics carried her to the canal in Japan for many years. “So of course I was looking forward to it. That was my big goal to be in Tokyo,” she said. There are a lot of kayak drivers in canoe slalom, which Canadians – in which people crouch and work with paddles – were far from daring. “Because the competition wasn’t that good yet, it was relatively easy to win medals. That made it attractive to me,” said Herzog, and those who are already successful in their youth will stay longer later. With the goal of the Olympics anyway.

The competition is much greater today, the canoe nations have upgraded. Herzog played her final on Thursday as confidently as if it weren’t her first Olympic Games and she wasn’t just 21 years old. With the fourth from last start number she crashed down the waves, “there were a few small corners in it”, she thought, she slightly deviated from her ideal line a few times. She passed the gates anyway, only on the 17th she touched the bars. “The touch was really totally stupid,” said Herzog later, but could laugh about it. With the time penalty she was second behind the Brit Mallory Franklin. Three more starters came, only the multiple world champion Jessica Fox from Australia was able to outdo the field.

“Having no competitions for a year was very good for the head”

“I take off my hat to be at the top of the start with so much callousness, to tear that thing down and then get a medal. Not very many do that,” said Herzog’s trainer Felix Michel. It can be a burden for a young athlete when so far only medals have jumped out from her colleagues and it is then her turn to prove herself. On Monday Sideris Tasiadis took bronze in the Canadian, on Tuesday Ricarda Funk won gold in a kayak. “It upset me a bit too,” Herzog admitted. On the other hand, the German Canoe Association had already achieved its Olympic goal, so she said to herself: “Maybe I have a small free ticket.”

At the age of 15, Herzog von Meißen moved to boarding school in Leipzig in order to be able to train under better conditions on the white water course in Markkleeberg. It wasn’t a long way geographically, but it was a challenging one. Life changes tremendously for a teenager away from family, but the homesickness got smaller eventually. Herzog threw herself into sports and school – Abi with 1.1 – and then she surprisingly became world champion in 2019. At 19 years of age. You have to understand that too first – although the postponement of the games by a year came in handy for her.

“Not having competitions for a year was very good for the head,” she said. And she was also able to work on her technique with the coaches, “because you didn’t have the pressure that it had to be perfect in two weeks, because then the next competition was coming up”. She made good use of the time out in the midst of the pandemic. And Herzog was sure that she had a large share in her bronze medal. “You never stop learning in our sport, it always gets better.”

Your conquest of Tokyo now has a place of honor. “I always imagined beforehand that if I should win a medal, I would buy a picture frame and hang it in there,” said Herzog, “that it will always be remembered.” On Friday she wants to cheer on team mate Hannes Aigner, he is the last of the four starters in Tokyo, so far there are three races and three medals. He can ask Andrea Herzog how best to deal with pressure.