Isabel Gose swam to a silver medal in the 800 meter freestyle at the Short Course World Championships in Budapest. The Berlin native was only beaten by the Australian Lani Pallister (8:01.95 minutes) on Wednesday.
In the end, the 22-year-old Gose was 3.47 seconds short of the big coup, but she remained well below the previous national record set by Sarah Köhler (now Wellbrock) from 2019 (8:08.02). Third in the Duna Aréna was Katie Grimes (8:05.90 minutes) from the USA.
“I didn’t see much on the outside of lane eight, but I obviously surprised the others with my race division.”said Gose, “Winning medals at all the international highlights is of course absolutely brilliant. I’m just happy and from now on I see everything that comes next as an encore.”
Clever race division
Gose, who won bronze in the 1,500 meter freestyle at the Olympic Games in Paris and at the World Championships in Qatar, divided her race cleverly. At halftime, the Berlin native, who lives and trains in Magdeburg, was in second place and was ultimately able to bring the position to the finish.
The day before, Gose had come sixth over half the distance and had also achieved a German record. An individual start over the 1500 m is on the agenda for her on Friday.
Otherwise, rather mixed results
In the final of the 50 m butterfly, Marius Kusch (Essen) came eighth in 22.17 seconds, while the Swiss Noe Ponti won gold with a world record (21.32). Rafael Miroslaw (Hamburg) missed the final in the semifinals in 46.33 seconds.
In the women’s race, Nina Holt (Mönchengladbach) also reached the semifinals over the same distance in 52.56 seconds. Nicole Maier (Essen) was already eliminated in the preliminary heat in the morning, as were the two breaststroke swimmers Melvin Imoudu (Potsdam) and Lucas Matzerath (Frankfurt) in the 100 m.
Wellbrock with the first German medal
On Tuesday, Florian Wellbrock (Magdeburg) secured the first German medal in Budapest. The open water Olympic champion in Tokyo swam to silver in the 1500 m freestyle on the first day of competition.
Lukas Märtens, gold medalist in Paris in the 400 m freestyle, is not competing in the Hungarian capital. The 22-year-old had to cancel his participation at short notice due to illness.