The swimming stars of SC Magdeburg shone at the start of the national World Cup qualification.
Above all, open water Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock was convincing in the three-day competition for the “Gothaer & friends cups” in Magdeburg.
The freestyle specialist finished the 800 meters in 7:48.06 minutes and set his second world best time of the year, after he had already managed the 1500 meters in 14:40.18 minutes on Friday.
Training group colleague Oliver Klemet (SG Frankfurt) finished second in 7:51.38 minutes, beating the standard time set by the German Swimming Association (DSV) for the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan (July 14th to 30th). While Wellbrock, as the silver medalist at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, is already set for this discipline in Japan, the second starting place will now be contested until April 23rd.
Lukas Märtens shines over 200 and 400 meters
400-meter freestyle European champion Lukas Märtens set a world best time of the year (3:43.32 minutes) on his parade route on Saturday. On Sunday he did the 200 meter freestyle in 1:45.79 minutes.
After this weekend, Isabel Gose can plan with four World Championship starts. As last year’s World Cup finalist in the 200, 400 and 800-meter freestyle, the 400-meter European champion from Rome was pre-nominated by the DSV in three disciplines for the 2023 World Cup. On Sunday, the 20-year-old crawled in 16:04.98 minutes, the best time over 1500 meters freestyle and remained well below the World Cup specification.
As the only non-nominated athlete, Angelina Köhler from Berlin undercut the World Championship norm in the 100 meter butterfly.