Double podium for Italy in the first race in the European Cross-Country Swimming Championships in Belgrade. Barbara Pozzobon and Giulia Gabbrielleschi are second and third in the 10 kilometers, behind the German Leonie Beck, one of the few aces of the specialty present in these competitions and capable of confirming the success of two years ago in Rome. But the twenty-seven year old from Augusta had to work hard to beat the girl from Treviso, who was one step away from the first individual gold of her career after having led the race until the very last strokes. Veronica Santoni was sixteenth collapsed on the last lap.
It took half the race to see the first real attempts to reach forward, first the Spanish Maria De Valdes and then the Monegasque Lisa Pou. The latter takes a minimal margin, and the Italians emerge, with Barbara Pozzobon and Giulia Gabbrielleschi swimming in the leading positions.
Pozzobon himself takes control of the situation again shortly before the seventh kilometre, but in the meantime the best remain in the lead with Veronica Santoni appearing together with the very dangerous Beck. But in the meantime it is always Barbara who sets the pace, trying even a minimal escape while maintaining a few meters of margin while behind Leonie Beck begins to change gear.
The last strokes are very nervous, the German shifts into high gear in the last 1500 meters but the Italian resists and actually tries to relaunch in the last 300 metres. Beck is not surprised and remains in the wake of a consummate sprinter, to go out in the last 30 meters and touch the plate a moment before, with a little more clarity than an exhausted Barbara, who sees the gold vanish practically in the last stroke and by just one tenth.
