Para swimmer Maurice Wetekam (Leverkusen) surprisingly won the silver medal at the World Championships in Madeira.
On Sunday, the 16-year-old was only beaten by the Italian Stefano Raimondi (1:07.61) in his favorite discipline 100 m breaststroke in a German record time of 1:10.02 minutes. James Leroux of Canada (1:11.04) was third.
“It feels great. Being second at the first World Championships, it doesn’t get any better than that. The German record was added to that. I actually wanted to swim under 1:09 minutes, but I’m super happy,” said Wetekam .
The two-time world champion Elena Semechin (Berlin) starts despite her ongoing chemotherapy on Monday (8:28 p.m.) in the final over 100 m breaststroke. The Tokyo Paralympic champion was diagnosed with a brain tumor last October and survived the difficult operation in early November.