World Championship in Budapest
The chances of German athletes at the swimming world championships
24-year-old Florian Wellbrock is aiming for success in the 800-meter freestyle and 1500-meter freestyle at the Swimming World Championships in Budapest. Photo: Sergei Grits/AP/dpa/Archive
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There will probably not be a rain of medals for the German Swimming Association at the World Championships in Budapest. However, the association should not go empty-handed.
Small but nice – that’s how you can describe the German squad for the swimming world championships with five water sports in Budapest. And it’s not without a chance when it comes to winning precious metals. The swimmers have the greatest hopes.
pool swimming:
Everyone is talking about Florian Wellbrock. Rightly. The 24-year-old is the defending champion in the 1500m freestyle and wants to do everything to bring home gold again. He also calculates something over the 800 meter freestyle, although he is still waiting for the perfect race on this 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 this time I can be satisfied, »said Wellbrock.
In his shadow, club colleague Lukas Märtens has developed into a serious competitor, who currently holds the world best times of the year from 400 meters to 1500 meters freestyle. Trainer Bernd Berkhahn believes he is capable of a big breakthrough, just like Märten’s partner Isabel Gose. She sees a chance, especially over 800 meters. Among the candidates who can certainly surprise are Henning Mühlleitner, who is believed to be particularly capable of more than 400 meters freestyle, as well as breaststroke swimmer Anna Elendt and freestyle swimmer Rafael Miroslaw, who have already improved the German records over short distances this season.
open water swimming:
If there is a clear favorite over ten kilometers in open water, then it’s Florian Wellbrock. The man from Magdeburg has dominated this route since the 2019 World Championships and was crowned Olympic champion in Tokyo with a “perfect race, if that even exists” (Wellbrock). Even in the starts before the World Championships, the man from Magdeburg showed that you have to beat him first if you want to become world champion. For the first time, the 24-year-old will also start over the five kilometers and wants to reach for medals there too.
The women’s best chances are Leonie Beck, fifth at the Olympics, over five and ten kilometers and Jeannette Spiwoks over five kilometers. 25-kilometer European champion Lea Boy is also one of the favourites, especially over the longest distance. What is possible in the 4 x 1.5 kilometer relay, for which Oliver Klemet, Wellbrock, Boy and Beck are initially planned, remains to be seen. After all, the team race will be held just one day after Wellbrock’s scheduled 1500m pool final.
diving:
What comes after the resignations of Patrick Hausding and Martin Wolfram? National coach Lutz Buschkow is certain of quite a bit. Now others have the chance to jump into the limelight. The German championships at the beginning of May showed that there is a lot of potential in the diving camp. The Olympic medal winners Tina Punzel, Lena Hentschel and Lars Rüdiger own the largest. Punzel managed four championship titles and was in a class of its own with 3-meter synchronized partner Henschel. This competition should also offer the greatest chance of medals. However, given the absence of the strong Russians, who are suspended due to the invasion of Ukraine, medals are possible in other competitions as well. The DSV occupies eleven of the twelve disciplines. Only synchronized jumping from the men’s tower takes place without German starters due to injury.
water polo:
The German water polo players use the World Cup to determine where they stand. Because important top performers are no longer there or injured, the new national coach Petar Porobic was forced to make a major change. Only four players from the 2019 World Cup are still in the squad. And the opponents in the preliminary round in Debrecen are tough: Japan is followed by Croatia, which has always won World Cup medals since 2007, and Greece, who came second at the Olympics. “The world championships are primarily there to look after the upheaval, where we are at the moment,” said captain Moritz Schenkel of the DSV association magazine “Swim & More”.
Synchronized swimming:
Participation in the finals is the big goal of the two DSV synchronized swimmers Marlene Bojer and Michelle Zimmer. The 29-year-old Bojer has four starts in Hungary: both as a soloist and as a duet with Zimmer, she enters the water in the technical freestyle and in the freestyle. Bojer already acted on Friday. As eleventh in the preliminary competitions, she entered the finals of the technical freestyle as a soloist and in a duet with Zimmer – more than a respectable success, because for the first time in the history of German synchronized swimming, since 2007, technical and free freestyle have been separated. At the European Championships in 2021, they had achieved the best DSV result in the history of these disciplines in the history of the European Championships in a duet with tenth place in the technical freestyle and eleventh place in the freestyle. Now that will be topped at the World Cup.