Maria Lenk

Maria Lenk
Maria Lenk with then-Brazilian Minister of Sports Agnelo Queiroz.
Personal information
National team  Brazil
Born January 15, 1915
São Paulo, Brazil
Died April 16, 2007(2007-04-16) (aged 92)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sport
Sport Swimming

Maria Emma Hulga Lenk (January 15, 1915 – April 16, 2007) was a Brazilian swimmer and to date is considered one of the greatest Brazilian female athletes.

At the age of 17, she was the first Brazilian and South-American woman to participate in the Summer Olympic Games, at the 1932 Summer Olympics, in Los Angeles.[1]

Biography

María Lenk in 1940.

Born in São Paulo, Maria Lenk was the first Brazilian in history to set a world record in swimming. On November 8, 1939, in Rio de Janeiro with a time of 2:56.0, she beat Jopie Waalberg's previous record of 2:56.9, for the 200m breaststroke event.[2] This record lasted almost 5 years, until Nel van Vliet, from the Netherlands broke it on August 17, 1946, with a time of 2:52.6.

In the same year, she also broke the world record for the discontinued category of 400m breaststroke, with a time of 6:15.8.[3]

She also participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics, in Berlin, where she reached the semifinals of the 200m breaststroke event. In this occasion, she also became the first woman in the world to swim the Butterfly stroke in an official competition. At the time, the Butterfly stroke was used as a form of swimming the Breaststroke, and not yet recognized as a separate swimming stroke. Lenk's account of the event was that at the time she subscribed to a German specialized magazine that ran a story on David Armbruster's and Jack Sieg's work in developing "a new way of swimming the Breaststroke". She became interested and started practicing the stroke by herself in her training sections. In 1936, she and Jack Sieg were the only two people that were prepared to use the technique in the Breaststroke events at the Summer Olympics.

Lenk's goal of winning an Olympic medal was cut short when World War II caused the cancellation of the Games of 1940 and 1944, which would have corresponded to her peak in competitive swimming.

She retired in 1942, but never stopped swimming, focusing on Masters events.

On April 16, 2007, she was training in the Clube de Regatas do Flamengo's swimming pool when her blood pressure dropped and she suffered a sudden respiratory arrest. She was taken to Copa D'Or Hospital, in Copacabana, but medical personnel couldn't revive her and she died of cardiac arrest, aged 92.[4]

Before her death, Maria Lenk still swam 1½ kilometres every day, even in her 90s.

Master World Records

At the time of her death, Maria Lenk still held five Master World Records:

PoolAge GroupTimeEventDate
LC90-941:25.9150m breaststrokeDecember 18, 2005
LC90-943:12.88100m breaststrokeAugust 15, 2005
LC90-946:57.76200m breaststrokeAugust 15, 2005
SC85-892:29.90100m breaststrokeApril 9, 2000
SC90-946:37.73200m breaststrokeApril 21, 2005

Awards

  • In 1988, she was inducted the FINA Swimming Hall of Fame and, in the same year, was awarded the "Top Ten" award given to the best masters swimmers worldwide.
  • In 2004, she received the Adhemar Ferreira da Silva Trophy for lifetime achievement from the Brazilian Olympic Committee at the Prêmio Brasil Olímpico, an annual award given to the best athletes in each Olympic sport.
  • On February 12, 2007, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, César Maia, officially gave her name to the new Aquatic Park venue that held swimming, diving and synchronized swimming events at the 2007 Pan American Games, in Rio de Janeiro. It also hosted the aquatic events at the 2016 Olympics.[5]
  • On April 17, 2007, one day after her death, the president of the Confederação Brasileira de Desportos Aquáticos (Brazilian Aquatic Sports Confederation), Coaracy Nunes, announced that the name of the Troféu Brasil de Natação (Brazilian Swimming Trophy) had been changed to the Maria Lenk Trophy in Lenk's honour.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Lenk, a primeira brasileira em Olimpíadas" (in Portuguese)
  2. ↑ "Cielo is the 13º brazilian world record holder". Globoesporte (in Portuguese). July 30, 2009. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Cielo is the 13º brazilian world record holder". Globoesporte (in Portuguese). July 30, 2009. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Morre a nadadora Maria Lenk" (in Portuguese)
  5. ↑ Rio 2016 Bid Book, Vol.2--Sports & Venues section. Retrieved 2009-06-23.
  6. ↑ "Troféu Brasil vai se chamar Maria Lenk" [The Brazilian Swimming Trophy is renamed to Maria Lenk Trophy] (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2014-03-20.
Records
Preceded by
Netherlands Jopie Waalberg		 Women's 200 metre breaststroke
world record holder (long course)
8 November 1939 – 19 March 1941		 Succeeded by
Germany Anni Kapell
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.