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Ricarda Funk won the first gold medal for Germany
Photo: Jan Woitas / dpa
What takes a long time will finally become gold: On the fourth day of the competition, Ricarda Funk became the first German Olympic champion at the Tokyo Summer Games in the single kayak slalom.
Later that day, the German dressage riders around Isabell Werth also lived up to their role as favorites in the team competition.
Tuesday was a disappointment for two of the games' superstars: Japan's Naomi Osaka surprisingly had to admit defeat to Czech Marketa Vondrousova in the second round of the tennis tournament.
Gymnastics star Simone Biles withdrew from the team competition after a faulty exercise on the vault, the Russian gymnasts then won ahead of Biles' US-Americans.
Worry about gymnastics superstar Biles
In Rio de Janeiro, Simone Biles won four gold medals in 2016, the outstanding gymnast of recent years is also in every single apparatus finals in Tokyo. However, the American broke off the team competition after the first of four exercises: At the jump, Biles revealed unusual problems when landing and then left the hall with the team doctor.
After winning the silver medal, which Biles received as well as her representative Jordan Chiles, the 24-year-old explained the reasons. An injury was not the cause, instead it was "a small injury to my pride," as Biles said. »I had to do what is right for me and focus on my mental health and not endanger my well-being. When I do gymnastics, I have less confidence, less fun and more nervousness. It sucks fighting with your own head, ”Biles said. For the time being, she left a job in the next competition on Thursday open. Even after the individual qualifications, Biles wrote on Instagram about the pressure that was on her: "Sometimes I really feel like I'm carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders."it said in the post.
Funk's golden white water ride
On the fourth day of the competition, the German Olympic team celebrated gold for the first time.
In the kayak single slalom, Ricarda Funk prevailed with 1.13 seconds ahead of defending champion Maialen Chourraut from Spain and the big favorite Jessica Fox (Australia, +1.23 seconds).
The Canoe Association is the most reliable German medal guarantee at the games so far, with both previous decisions there was a place on the podium in the end.
The day before, Sideris Tasiadis had won bronze, also in the slalom.
Dressage riders dominate gold
The dressage team also secured gold in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Isabell Werth with Bella Rose, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl with Dalera and Dorothee Schneider with the gelding Showtime showed an impressive overall performance and left the competition from the USA and Great Britain behind.
It was another chapter of German dominance in this discipline, in which the team has always won team gold with only one exception since 1984.
Overall, it was the 14th team gold for Germany at the Olympics since 1928.
As an individual athlete, Isabell Werth can advance into historical dimensions at these games.
If she wins the individual final on Wednesday (from 10.30 a.m. CEST, TV: ZDF), she will have eight gold medals and will be level with canoeist Birgit Fischer, the most successful German Olympian to date.
The greatest danger to this success is probably Bredow-Werndl's teammate.
Favorite Osaka fails at number 42 in the world
At the Olympic tennis tournament, Japan's gold hope Naomi Osaka was surprisingly eliminated in the round of 16.
Osaka, second in the world rankings and top favorite after the equally unexpected out of their worst rival Ashleigh Barty (Australia), lost to Czech Marketa Vondrousova 1: 6, 4: 6.
Osaka made many simple mistakes against Vondrousova, number 42 in the world.
As one of the most prominent faces in Japanese sport, there was already a lot of pressure on Osaka in the run-up to the Games, which was also allowed to light the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony.
Teenage Jacoby dupes swimming elite
In the Aquatics Center in Tokyo, the duel between Tatjana Schoenmaker (South Africa) and US swimmer Lilly King over the 100 meter chest was eagerly awaited.
It should only be the duel for silver and bronze: The only 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby from the small town of Seward in Alaska surprisingly won the gold medal.
The Australian Kaylee McKeown won over the 100 meters back in the women, in the men Evgeny Rylov from Russia won over this distance.
The Briton Tom Dean won gold in the 200 meter freestyle.
Boxer Apetz with an emotional Olympic premiere
Boxing competitions for women have only been part of the Olympic program since 2012.
This year, a German female boxer will take part in the Games for the first time: Nadine Apetz had been working towards the Olympic goal for seven years.
In an even fight, she was now narrowly defeated by the Indian Lovlina Borgohain.
Still there is heavyweight Ammar Riad Abduljabbar, who clearly won his round of 16 against the Peruvian José Maria Lucar and meets the Russian Muslim Gadschimagomedow on Friday (6.40 am CEST).
Short and sweet
Dimitrij Ovtcharov made it to the quarter-finals of the individual table tennis competition on Tuesday with two wins.
There he will meet the Brazilian Hugo Calderano on Wednesday (2 p.m. CEST).
Old master Timo Boll, who lost 4-1 to South Korean Youngsik Jeoung, is no longer there.
Triathlete Flora Duffy achieved a historic success: with her victory, the 33-year-old won the first Olympic gold in the history of Bermuda.
The state in the North Atlantic has only 64,000 inhabitants.
The surf enthusiastic Brazilians had already sensed a shift when superstar Gabriel Medina surprisingly lost to his opponents Kanoa Igarashi (Japan) and Owen Wright (Australia) both in the semifinals and in the heat for bronze.
Nevertheless, Brazil was able to look forward to the first surf gold in the young Olympic history of the sport: Italo Ferreira won the final.
In the women’s category, Carissa Moore (USA) won.
In the swimming prelims, things were mixed up for the German representatives. Former world champion Marco Koch did not reach the final in the 200 meters chest, nor did Damian Wierling in the 100 meters freestyle. Franziska Hentke reached the semifinals over the 200 meter butterfly, gold hope Florian Wellbrock swam over the weakest of his three distances, the 800 meter freestyle, a new German record in 7: 41.77 minutes and qualified as second best for the final.
There was good news where German duos had to play a ball over the net: Beach volleyball vice world champions Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler won their second group game and defeated the Poles Piotr Kantor / Bartosz Losiak 2-0 after a good performance.
Alexander Zverev and Jan-Lennart Struff also showed no nakedness.
In tennis doubles they defeated the French Gael Monfils and Jeremy Chardy 6: 4, 7: 5 and are thus in the quarter-finals.
Judoka Dominic Ressel just missed a medal.
The 27-year-old lost his battle for bronze against the Austrian Shamil Borchashvili through Ippon.
The Olympic champion was the Japanese Takanori Nagase.
cev / sid / dpa / rtr
