Olympics to forget

First hit by a boat, then bitter tears on TV

For Ricarda Funk, it was an Olympic Games to forget.(Bild: AFP/Ebrahim Noroozi, Screenshot ARD)

Paris was not worth the trip for Ricarda Funk. The German Olympic hopeful also failed to win a medal in the kayak cross. To make matters worse, a competitor's boat crashed into her face. There were bitter tears after the competition.

Ricarda Funk was hit in the face with the kayak by her Spanish opponent Maialen Chourraut during an upward gate. In third place, the German was eliminated in the quarter-finals and had to bury her medal hopes.

Ricarda Funkt got the boat in her face.(Bild: Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

"I realize that I got hit in the face, but it's not like I'm in brutal pain. This is kayak cross. You have to be prepared for the fact that something like that can happen," Funk said, noting that she didn't mean to hurt her opponent. Then the tears flowed during the ZDF interview. "I couldn't get my paddle into the water on the left or right. We were all in a heap. It went on like that until the first upstream gate. I was really attacked and also tried to attack myself. I didn't manage to pass them and that was my Olympic Games."

"Brutal" week
The whole week was "brutal", Funk describes. Then she looked at the 15,000 spectators at the white water channel: "And somehow ... just look at that. How awesome is that? And unfortunately I'm going home with a very disappointing result." She only came eleventh in the single kayak after a 50-second penalty.