Two big stories have already emerged on the opening day of the 2014 European Aquatics Championships in Berlin, Germany.
The championship began Wednesday with the premier women’s open water event, the 10km race in the Regattastrecke Grunau, with two big stories. One of those big stories was a matter of a surprising finish at the top of the leader board, and the other surrounded and athlete who didn’t finish at all.
The Upset Victory In the Women’s 10Km
Dutch swimmer Sharon Van Rouwendaal is a three-time European Championship medalist in the pool and at the 2011 World Championships won the bronze medal in the 200 backstroke. In her open water major premier on Wednesday, though, Van Rouwendaal won her first ever European title, and it came in the open water. She swam the four-lap course in 1:56:06.9 to beat the defending Olympic Champion, and open water swimming legend, Eva Risztov from Hungary by just over a second.
The signs were present that the 20-year old van Rouwendaal was shifting her focus away from the backstrokes, as she hasn’t swum the 200 meter distance at all in 2014, and has only a handful of mediocre results in the 100.
In the meantime, she put up lifetime bests in the 400, 800, and 1500 freestyles, and similarly looked very good in the short course versions of those races in December at the European Short Course Championships. There was little, if any, indication that she would be heading into the lake, however, to contend for those medals.
Van Rouwendaal rarely lead the race, wisely content to mirror the veteran Risztov’s strategy and hang behind the leader through the first 7.5 kilometers. Italian Aurora Ponsele’ took the task of pushing the pace throughout.
In this particular course, the strategy of patience paid off. With Berlin not being a common stop even on the very active European open water circuit, few of the competitors had much familiarity with this course. Even the home field advantage played little part – the impressive German open water team had nobody finish higher than 13th – Angela Maurer, who was four minutes behind the lead pack.
Full women’s 10km results here.
Near Tragedy
There were two swimmers who didn’t finish the women’s 10 kilometer course, both of whom were Polish, and one of whom had to be rescued from the lake. Natalie Charlos completed three laps and was in the lead pack headed into the 4th.
However, according to the Associated Press, spectators and officials noticed that Charlos had ceased moving in the water, and a lifeguard was dispatched to pull her ashore unconscious. The swimmer, who lives and trains in Germany, was “recovering well” after overexerting herself, according to team doctor Alexander Beck.
Men’s 5KM Race Finishes in the Fogg
In the second race, swum later in the day at 1:30, British swimmer Daniel Fogg won the men’s 5km race in what in his words became a “time trial” by the finish. He sat with the pack at the halfway mark behind German star Thomas Lurz, but in the second lap pulled well clear of the field to win by 20 seconds, with a time of 53:41.4.
Fogg at 26 years old is probably on the back-side of his pool career, evidenced by a disappointing result in the 1500 at the Commonwealth Games, but the 5th-place finisher in the 10k from the 2012 Olympics is just entering his prime as an open water swimmer.
Rob Muffels from Germany was 2nd in 54:01.8, and his country mate Lurz was 3rd in 54:02.6.
Both Pal Joensen and Marc-Antoine Olivier were disqualified. Joensen is another pool star making his major open water debut.
Being a sub-51 min 5km swimmer in the 50m pool, Gregorio Paltrinieri should try his hand at the time trial format in the future.
Yes, like Belmonte and Harle…New format, new opportunities
Pal Joensen was DQ´ed for a false start.
Watch the start her: http://www.svimjing.com/
There is also an interview with Pal for those who know Faroese…
Pal wrote the following on his facebook:
“Had a nightmare of at start to these European Camps. I got disqualified for a false start at the 5k today, which was very irritating, because I had no incentive to cheat, I just didn’t know the start signal well enough. Simply a case of lack of open water experience. But fair is got to be fair, every .01 second counts and this is a gentleman’s sport after all. I’m just glad that the judges stopped me in… Read more »
Haha nice reaction. imo he clearly wanted to get an unfair advantage right from the start. if the judges wouldnt have stopped him, the other swimmers wouldve had no chance to catch up to him, considering that he wouldve had a 0.1s lead, which is impossible to make up with 5000m to go.
Now more serious: How is it possible that he didnt know the rules, is it his first competition ever?
Imagine that wouldve happened in rio:) 4 years training and then 0.1s competition.
About the mens 5km race: Muffels seems to be a great talent, he was born in 1994, lurz will probably be better at 10km.
As far as i know he has done one 5 km race in Germany about 1 month ago. That I think is he only race before. And I dont think that was a time trial.
Lucas knows what he’s doing when it comes to distance free. That’s a ballsy move to shift a World Championship medalist in backstroke to a completely disparate set of events, but it seems to be paying off for Sharon in a big way. To win a continental championship in your first international race is huge. I’d bet she’s due for a big drop in the 800 and 1500 later in the meet too.
I’d like to hear more of this safety plan. How much time did it take for the lifeguard to get to the unconscious swimmer after spectators and officials noticed her? If she was unconscious facedown, I hope it was VERY fast. Did the water temperature play a role?
The German language newspapers have more on this incident, although admittedly I had to use google translate so I may have lost some detail. It seems that observers were quite upset about the response time to get to Ms. Charlos, but fortunately she was able to recognize her coach once she revived consciousness.
Apparently, the rule is that the swimmer must indicate to lifeguards that they are in distress. Clearly, this is a system that would fail for an unconscious swimmer. After Crippen’s death I would have hoped that safety regulations would have made for a better safety plan. This one looks like it was a near miss.
^regained consciousness
Amazing! Her first international 10km…She won French National last June with three minutes lead over the second position, Aurelie Muller…And I believe that this year not taken part in World Cup or European Cup
The 5k race was swum as a time trial with the competitors starting at regular intervals rather than a more traditional race, perhaps in response to the Barcelona fisticuffs.
Having recently taken my own first forays into open water swimming competition, it was quite an eye opener what goes on 🙂
Why were the swimmers dq’d?
First win at these championships for Philippe Lucas as coach. He trains SVR since last September.