World Cup in Qatar
National swimming coach: Started from scratch with Wellbrock
Won silver in the 1500 meter freestyle at the end of the World Championships: Florian Wellbrock. photo
© Gian Mattia D’alberto/LaPresse via ZUMA Press/dpa
Florian Wellbrock is also considered a great hope for a medal at the Olympic Games in Paris. His coach believes that he matured further through the failures in Doha.
Long-distance national coach Bernd Berkhahn sees the silver medal Florian Wellbrock over 1500 meters freestyle at the end of the World Swimming Championships in Doha as a milestone on the way to the Olympic Games in Paris.
“We hadn’t particularly prepared for the World Championships. After training, he swam this time and became runner-up in the world championships. That’s really very strong. With all the problems he had to overcome on a physical and psychological level, it was a masterpiece,” said Berkhahn.
Wellbrock had previously been unable to defend his titles over 5 and 10 kilometers in the open water and had already been eliminated in the preliminary round over 800 meters. He talked a lot with Wellbrock. “That’s what coaching is all about: finding the right words, finding the right ways to access the performance reserves. In this case, that worked well,” emphasized the coach.
He just gave him clear instructions on what to do. They proceeded step by step and prepared the 1500 meter run very accurately and very slowly. “We started from scratch, you could say,” reported Berkhahn. After doing that very well at the 2019 World Cup, Wellbrock also did it really well in Doha. “I believe that he has continued to grow and that it was a big step towards Paris,” said the successful coach.
Start of preparation for the Olympics
Now the hard preparation for the Olympic Games begins for Wellbrock, but also for the other Magdeburg medalists Isabel Gose and Lukas Märtens. “Our altitude training camps are still coming. The high loads and the high volumes, i.e. everything that affects performance in the summer, are now on top of that. The focus so far has been on improving strength training, increasing the strength level and also the Intensities,” said Berkhahn.
He generally described the World Cup as a success. “The small group that was here and will form the core of the Olympic team did a very good job. A lot of medals were collected, but those are not the focus, rather the Olympic qualifications that were achieved, and the level of performance shown,” said Berkhahn. The German team won six medals in Doha, including a gold one for Angelina Köhler in the 100 meter butterfly.