Olympia 2021
Slalom canoeist Ricarda Funk wins first gold for Germany
Cheers after her final run in the kayak single: Slalom canoeist Ricarda Funk already knew that she had won a medal. A little later she cheered about gold.
© Charly Triballeau / AFP
She loves the Harry Potter novels and has practically conjured her way through the slalom poles of the Olympic course: Ricarda Funk won the first gold medal for the German team in the kayak one of the slalom canoeists.
Ricarda Funk jumped into the water with her coaching team after her gold coup and could hardly believe her luck. After a splendid ride through the whitewater canal in Tokyo, the 29-year-old sports soldier has reached her destination. Funk rushed to the Olympic gold medal in canoe slalom on Tuesday and celebrated the greatest success of her career after many setbacks. “I just can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it,” said Funk with tears in his eyes. She won the 25-pole course in the Kasai Canoe Slalom Center in front of the Spaniard Maiale Chourraut and the Australian top favorite Jessica Fox and secured the first German gold medal in Tokyo.
Funk was finally at the top – after all the setbacks, of all things, at a time when the athlete, who was born in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, is also with her thoughts in her home, which was badly hit by the flood disaster. In 2016 she missed the Olympics. At the world championships she was second and third in the individual, but it was not enough for victory. Until her perfect day in Tokyo. The lightweight snaked through the gates with strength and elegance and showed no nerves.
Ricarda Funk: “I was worried for a long time”
That was different in the semifinals. Funk was the only finalist to make two stick touches. Nevertheless, thanks to her speed, she came third-best in the final after the mistakes at gates 4 and 12. That gave confidence.
In Rio, she still had to watch, even though she was the overall winner of the World Cup in 2016. Now she was worried about the Tokyo Games for a long time. “For a very long time, I was very worried about whether the whole thing would take place here. I didn’t prepare for it for four – in this case five – years, but for a whole athletic life.” She always found support in the family. “I came to the sport through my family, my father trained me for years,” she said and is also sad that her loved ones cannot be there. “Tickets, everything was already booked”. She would have loved to “put the family in the suitcase”.
With dad in the boat as a five-year-old
She sat in the boat with Papa Thorsten for the first time at the age of five or six: “I can remember that we sailed on the Rhine. We said: the waves from the ships are like children’s birthday parties, we want a bit of it experience more. ” The love for canoe slalom came later. “At first I thought it was for boys. I wanted to do a typical girl sport like horse riding or dancing.” In her first competition she was last. “After that I said to myself: never again.” It was not until she was 14 that she completely decided to go canoeing and gave up dancing in a carnival group.
Their lightness – especially when dancing on the waves – has remained. Which is not only due to her 53 kilograms of body weight. In the field of world class female athletes, she is one of the lightest, but she has enormous powers on the paddle. “Of course it’s cool when you have such a power-load ratio. That’s an advantage in this sport too. Sometimes it’s just fun when you can annoy a few people.” The sturdy canoeists could “sometimes box their way through the waves better, but I simply get the boat moving forwards better”.
Harry Potter fan Funk wants to go to Hogwarts
Preferably in the style of Harry Potter. Funk loves novels and magic. “I’m still waiting for my letter, which has not yet arrived, that I can finally go to Hogwarts,” she said with a smile and emphasized: “Magic is somehow something nice for children. I still think it’s cool today.”
So she conjured her way through the pole labyrinth, which wobbled back and forth due to the stormy weather in Tokyo on Tuesday. That also matched her credo in the whitewater canal: “It’s a bit like dancing on the water when I’m surfing the wave and doing a backward turn.” She only avoids the water on vacation. She loves hiking in the mountains. “A pure beach vacation would be too boring for me.”
