Bettina Fabian finished fifth in the women's 10km with top-class tactics. The field struggled terribly with the currents of the Seine, those who distributed their power well ended up at the front. However, Betty won important positions in the Danube-based rounds, so she managed to finish in the top ten.
Finally, according to plans, the women's 10km race started at 8:30am in Signa – in general, on a very impressive course, after all, the third. The Sandor Bridge next to the Grand Palais, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, is an ideal scene for any TV broadcast. And what the swimmers have to deal with in the meantime is secondary from this point of view…
Although it turned out later from Betty's account that the water wasn't really dirty, I could see everything and everyone – and at the same time, the current is quite unusual for open water competitions. Incidentally, this was also evident in the fractional times: the competitors raced upstream in 7 and a half minutes, and covered the same distance in 13 and a half minutes on average.
Unfortunately, Betty suffered everything in the first round in just 14 minutes, and at that point everything seemed terrible, as she passed the measuring point in 20th place by 55 seconds. But then, after passing the “water baptism” and getting to know the course, he started swimming with more confidence. In the direction of the river, riding the current, he smoothly overtook it, and when he had to turn, unlike many competitors, he solved the problem with perfect technique and a sense of rhythm so that the river would not throw him off the ideal curve and thus maneuver himself into an increasingly prominent position. At the end of the second lap, he was already in twelfth place, at the halfway point he was in tenth place, and after the fourth lap he was already in seventh place, while cutting thirty seconds of the accumulated deficit to the leaders.
With reserves running out in most of the field, the gap became more serious – although Dutchman Rouwendaal, Australian Johnson and Italian Tadducci, who had been swimming in the top three, could no longer be contained by the halfway point. By lap four it became clear that Petty, Brazilian champion Cunha and fellow Italian Gabrieleschi were also about half a minute behind everyone else, 4-6. They would fight for a place.
And so it happened: although it seemed that Cunha would still attempt the impossible in the last straight, against the current (and then Petit could have gone with him), it soon became clear that this was a dead plan. It was left to the hairline, as Petit managed to cut off the Italian and move up to fifth place at a determined pace. At the age of 20, in his first Olympics, this is a remarkable achievement: in addition to the coach’s hug, his reward was a few sips of good Hungarian pálinka and a bottle of cola; the first stop of aftercare, so to speak.
Continuation tomorrow with David Bethlehem and Christoph Rasowski.
Bettina Fabian
“I was very scared in the first round, after I knew what to expect here, as I had trained twice on the Danube, so it was clear that there would be places where it would be difficult for us to swim, there would be brakes. In comparison, many people started fighting at the beginning, that is, they had no idea what was waiting for them, which you have to book seriously here, because it will not be a race in two hours. Swimming against the current took a lot out of me, and I reacted very well to the changes in speed, and the fact that the field was split gave me an extra motivation. I said, okay, let's catch up with the guy in front of us, twice I was the one who brought the chase group to the leaders when we were going down.
“They, the first three, had the advantage of being ahead from the start, but I didn’t even know where I stood for a while. I saw that there was a break in the parade on the beach during the swim. I was hoping that the defending champion Konya would bring us closer to the top, but he also struggled a lot, so we stayed in second place and I was almost in second place there; this is a great success, because I am the second youngest in the field and I handled this difficult course well. In the rounds, for example, I swam very well, and I was able to hold many positions. It also showed how useful training on the Danube is, because I was not carried away by the water, and I was not surprised when the current entered me, but I was very focused, and I immediately went straight to the beach as far as possible, and I was always the one who came out the best in the rounds. In the last two rounds, I saw that about six of us completely left the others, so I felt that we could not help but fail. In the end, I even managed to shake my hair, so I came in fifth place. I think this is a very good result for my first Olympic Games.”
