Title fights in Budapest
Competition from your own team: Wellbrock’s special swimming world championships
Got competition in the German team: Florian Wellbrock. Photo: Oliver Weiken/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Florian Wellbrock wants World Cup gold again in Budapest. He worked hard for this after his open water Olympic victory. It won’t be a sure-fire success. Where the international competition stands is unclear.
Self-confident, but also with an unfamiliar feeling: Florian Wellbrock is breaking new ground for himself at the swimming world championships in Budapest.
The undisputed number one in the camp of the German Swimming Association (DSV) since the title fights in 2019 in Gwangju, South Korea, starts as the defending champion over 1500 meters freestyle and ten kilometers in open water – and suddenly has internal competition.
His Magdeburg team colleague Lukas Märtens has developed into a serious medal candidate on all freestyle distances between 200 and 1500 meters with an explosion in performance and currently three world best times. That’s why coach Bernd Berkhahn didn’t even want to make any predictions about which of the two would be successful in Budapest before the first decisions were made.
“I always want to swim for the gold medal”
“Of course, as an athlete, I always want to swim for the gold medal. And if there is an additional athlete who can challenge you for the gold medal, that is of course unfavorable. On the other hand, I can pass on my experience and he benefits from it. That’s good for me too, and of course that makes me proud too, »says Wellbrock in a dpa interview on the new situation and praises the competitor: «If he can cope with the pressure at the world championships and starts with the right amount of joy and motivation goes, he is definitely a candidate who can swim for the medals on his routes. »
Personally, Wellbrock sees the focus on the competitions in which he is the defending champion: “That doesn’t mean that the other two races would be less important, but I’m looking forward to the ten kilometers and 1500 meters a little more.” In open water he makes his world championship debut over five kilometers, in the pool he finally wants to convince completely at the 800 meter distance.
“I’ve never swum an 800 meter race that I was really happy with. I always had something to complain about and I hope that I can be satisfied this time,” says the open water Olympic champion over ten kilometers.
Wellbrock sees a crisis in the association
Wellbrock is one of only eleven German swimmers who have made the norm for the World Cup. Freestyle specialist Josha Salchow is absent at short notice due to a corona infection, so there are only ten pool swimmers. Never before had a DSV team traveled to a World Championships with so few pool swimmers. Due to the strong Olympic Games, the standard times were relatively demanding, so that many relays could not qualify.
Wellbrock sees a crisis in the association. “From my point of view, a big point is the mindset of the individual athletes. For example, some are already satisfied if they qualify for a European Championship. Then, after the qualifying period, they put their feet up and say: “I’ve done everything that’s possible, and that’s enough for me now,” says Wellbrock, describing his impressions. However, the 24-year-old does not want to speak of a talent shortage in Germany. “But I believe that talented people are not encouraged and challenged enough on short-haul routes,” says the native of Bremen.
Long-distance national coach Berkhahn sees it that way too. In Anna Elendt and Rafael Miroslaw there are two hopeful Germans at shorter distances, but they live and train in the USA. “But that shouldn’t be the way for the DSV. Young people are well trained here, but there is a lack of taking them to the very top,” says Berkhahn.
Unusual competition rhythm
And so the focus of the DSV is primarily on the long freestyle distances, whereby not only Wellbrock and Märtens are promising, but also Isabel Gose and Henning Mühlleitner, who have already sniffed the Olympic air and want to draw attention to themselves again.
The question of how the international competition will deal with the unfamiliar competition rhythm remains open to everyone. After the Olympic cycle, which lasted five years due to Corona, the scope and intensity of training was reduced somewhat in the Berkhahn Group. “The body has to be able to recover, you have to give it some rest before the next Olympic preparation period begins,” says Berkhahn.
He is sure that it is similar in the big swimming nations. The coach therefore considers a record hunt with numerous new world records in Budapest, where Russians and Belarusians are not allowed to start because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to be almost impossible.
Nevertheless, the athletes can look forward to an enthusiastic atmosphere. Especially when the local swimming heroes race for the world record holders Kristof Milak or Katinka Hosszu, but also when stars like Adam Peaty, Caeleb Dressel or Katie Ledecky appear, the Hungarian fans who are enthusiastic about swimming will be able to follow the noise level in the arena directly on the Danube screw up.