The German swimmer Florian Wellbrock, according to the disappointment at the Summer Olympics, found the joy of sport.
“I’m back on the starting block again-I missed that in the past,” said the Tokyo Olympic champion before the World Cup in Singapore in the “Welt am Sonntag”.
After gold and bronze in Tokyo and a total of nine titles at World and European Championships in Paris, Wellbrock had disappointed both in the pool and in the open water and clearly missed the medals. Afterwards he took a seven -week break, changed the sports psychologist and now looks more positively on sport.
“I can’t say when that happened – it was certainly a gradual process. But in the processing I noticed that I went to the starting block because I had a job to do because it was my job because I had to do it. Now I am back there to have fun and find out what my body can do,” said Wellbrock.
The processing of the events of Paris took “for a while”: “At that moment a world broke together. It is difficult to put into words, but in me it was an incredibly great emptiness.” The 27-year-old did not have thoughts to leave his training location Magdeburg, but he “thought about my end of my career”.
Now he feels ready to write positive headlines again in Singapore. “From my head, too, I think that I have taken a very good way. I did a few things differently than in the Olympic year and in this way took some pressure out,” said Wellbrock. The open water races at the World Cup start on Tuesday.