Leonie Beck won her second gold medal in open water swimming at the World Championships in Japan. The 26-year-old won the five-kilometer race on Tuesday. Three days earlier, she had already secured first place over ten kilometers and thus also qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Beck won the fourth medal at the title fights in Fukuoka for the open water team of the German Swimming Association.
In the men’s race over ten kilometers, Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock won gold on Sunday, his Magdeburg training colleague Oliver Klemet secured bronze. Wellbrock had subsequently spoken of Germany as an “open water nation”. Beck confirmed the 25-year-old impressively.
With an outside temperature of more than 30 degrees and a water temperature of 28.2 degrees in the sea in front of the Momochi Seaside Park, Beck showed her strong development over the past few years. The early morning heat didn’t seem to bother her. Beck held back in the first half of the race and then swam forward in the decisive phase. She had done it similarly over twice the distance. She won after an impressive final sprint ahead of Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands and Ana Marcela Cunha from Brazil.
Born in Augsburg, she lives and trains in Italy, where she once again took a big step forward in a strong training group in Lido di Ostia. Last year she drew attention to herself at the World Championships in Budapest with silver in the ten-kilometer race and gold in the relay. In addition, she became European Champion in her adopted country.
Despite the secured Olympic ticket – her declared main goal for the title fights in southwestern Japan – Beck did not sit back. “Everything that comes now is a bonus,” she said on Saturday with a view to the other World Cup competitions and announced that she would still give “110 percent”. What that looks like, they let the competition feel it now.