For the first time, the cliff divers are part of the European Diving Championships. And the premiere produces a spectacular competition, at the end of which a German triumphs. There is also gold for Germany from ten meters lower. A favorite, on the other hand, experiences a bitter day.
Cliff jumper Iris Schmidbauer celebrated the gold medal at the European Championship premiere of her spectacular sport with a loud cheer. At the award ceremony, the 27-year-old enjoyed the anthem and then smiled and set off for the interview marathon. “It was enough for gold – amazing!” said Schmidbauer. The Bavarian jumped from a height of 20 meters from the huge diving tower with a view of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Olympic Stadium to her greatest career success.
Schmidbauer won in Rome with 309.30 points ahead of the Ukrainian Antonina Wyschywanowa (295.40) and the Italian Elisa Cosetti (284.30). The second German starter, Anna Bader, finished fourth with 281.90 points. The 38-year-old missed bronze by just 2.4 points. Cliff jumping, officially called High Diving by the world association, is integrated into the European Swimming Championships for the first time this year.
In the traditional diving with competitions from the board and ten-meter tower, the German team was also able to celebrate precious metal in the Foro Italico. Jaden Eikermann jumped to bronze with Timo Barthel and thus, like Schmidbauer, to the greatest success of his career to date.
On the day after the release of national water jump coach Lutz Buschkow, not everything went as well as hoped. “I know I can do better. But it just wasn’t supposed to be today,” said Tina Punzel after fourth place. From the three-meter board, Germany’s best water jumper was one of the top favorites, but she didn’t do well in the competition right from the start. “During the first two jumps, I thought something wasn’t 100 percent right today. Then I thought I’d go all out on the attack with the third jump. Of course, that was a total flop,” said the 27-year-old. Punzel received 277.65 points for her five jumps. The second German starter Lena Hentschel was twelfth with 233.95 points. The Italian Chiara Pellacani was crowned European Champion. Punzel was asked after the competition whether it was her last jump. “I’m not going to say anything about that at the moment,” replied the woman from Dresden.
She had previously won gold twice at the European Championships in Italy – including the day before together with Hentschel. “I would have liked to have picked up a medal again today,” said Punzel. “I think with the two gold medals I can still go home with a good feeling.” While Punzel is one of the most experienced athletes in their sport, the 17-year-old Eikermann still has most of his career ahead of him. With Barthel, Eikermann was only beaten by the victorious Britons Ben Cutmore and Kyle Kothari as well as Kirill Boliuch and Oleksij Sereda from the Ukraine in synchronized diving from the tower. Barthel and Eikermann were satisfied with the result, but they were not overjoyed.
Barthel spoke of a “crying smile” that the training performance was better. “We really wanted to compete. Unfortunately, one or the other jump didn’t go as well as we had hoped,” said the 26-year-old. The German duo received 369.30 points for their six jumps. “It’s my first medal at the European Championships. I’m definitely happy about it – especially being able to do it synchronously with Timo,” said Eikermann.
According to Barthel, the release of national coach Lutz Buschkow the day before did not have a negative effect on concentration. “We’re really into the competition,” he said. Barthel also said: “We are a team and if someone is missing, it’s always stupid, of course. That’s why we just hope that it will be clarified as soon as possible and that we’ll have him back quickly.” Punzel explained after her preliminary fight in the morning that she could “of course not completely ignore the situation. But I won’t say much more about it now”.
In a documentary by ARD entitled “Abused – Sexualized Violence in German Swimming”, the former world-class water jumper Jan Hempel speaks about allegations of sexual abuse against his former coach Werner Langer, who has died in the meantime.
Buschkow is accused in the documentation of having knowledge of Hempel’s allegations against his coach at the time. “The DSV board is currently examining this allegation intensively,” said a statement by the German Swimming Association on Thursday. However, the DSV also announced that the previous inspection of the files had not given any indication that Hempel’s allegations against Buschkow were correct.
