2016 Rio Olympics: German twins Lisa and Anna Hahner criticised for finishing marathon while holding hands
German twin runners Lisa and Anna Hahner have been making headlines for their Rio 2016 Olympics run, but not for the right reasons. The 26-year-old pair competed as individuals on Sunday’s marathon, but finished together while holding hands.
What appeared to be a sweet photo of sisters crossing the line side by side together has been inundated with criticisms because the twins apparently were more concerned about generating media attention than doing the best they could in the competition.
In the photos, Lisa and Anna have huge smiles on their faces as they hold hands and cross the finish line. They placed 81st and 82nd in the 44km marathon, more than 21 minutes behind Jemima Sumgong, the winner from Kenya, and more than 15 minutes behind their personal best performance.
Anna’s best performance is 2 hours, 26 minutes and 44 seconds, while Lisa is 2 hours, 28 minutes and 39 seconds. On Sunday in Rio, however, Anna finished 2:45:32, and Lisa finished in 2:45:33.
German Athletics Federation director Thomas Kurschilgen said that attaining medals is not the main goal, athletes in the Olympics should still demonstrate their best performance and aim for the best possible result. This was what the Hahner sisters have failed to realise.
“Their main aim was to generate media attention, Kurschilgen said in an email on Tuesday (via NY Times). “That is what we criticise.”
Lars Wallrodt from the German paper Die Welt (translation via news.com.au) shared the sentiment, saying the twins treated the race as some kind of fun run.
“The Olympics is the meeting of the best athletes, measuring the peak performance of each country’s best. If the Hahners jointly want to cross the finish line, beaming and holding hands, then they can – in the countryside home run in St. Plten or the Miss-Braided run in Solingen,” the columnist wrote. “At the Olympics, all athletes should go to achieve maximum performance, not the most sympathetic photo opportunity.”
Anna has refuted this, however, saying she and her sister did not plan on finishing the race while holding hands together.
“In all the marathons we ran together before, there was a point in the race we had to split up,” she wrote in an email. “This was also the case in the Olympic marathon.”
She further explained that racing with her twin literally just next to her was not planned. “I invested all I had and 300 metres before the finish line, I was next to Lisa. It was a magical moment that we could finish this marathon together. We did not think about what we were doing.”
The twins were also panned for allegedly overshadowing fellow German Anja Scherl in the race. Scherl did a lot better than the sisters, finishing 44th in the race.
“I’m sad that Anja Scherl completely perished in production,” Sabrina Mockenhaupt, a runner whose injury had forced her to missed Rio, said. “It makes you wonder whether honesty and a fighting spirit in today’s society is at all worthwhile.”
Identical twins Anna and Lisa Hahner are not the only sisters in the race. Identical triplets Leila, Liina and Lily Luik became the first triplets to compete in the Games marathon. The 30-year-old runners from Estonia were behind the Hahner twins in the race. Lily finished 97th place in 2:48:29, Leila finished 114th in 2:54:38, while Liina failed to finish at all.
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