Freestyle swimmer Isabel Gose has to wait for the first world championship medal of her career – despite a good time.
The Magdeburg native took sixth place over 1,500 meters in the title fights in Fukuoka, Japan, on Tuesday (July 25, 2023). With a personal best of 15:54.58 minutes, she was 8.87 seconds behind Li Bingjie of China who took bronze.
As expected, the title went to US swimming star Katie Ledecky. The 26-year-old Olympic champion, defending champion and world record holder swam the longest pool distance in her own league and won in 15:26.27 minutes, 17.04 seconds ahead of Simona Quadarella of Italy.
Gose satisfied with the time
“The focus today is on the best time. It was the first international final on this route,” said Gose, who actually wanted to swim a little further forward. “It didn’t quite work out, but the time was good,” said the 21-year-old and added: “I also swam a little for Sarah, she thought. I would like to show her that I am worthy of taking over the 1,500 meters from her.” Sarah Wellbrock (formerly Koehler) had only recently ended her active career.
Gose finished seventh on her 400-meter freestyle show, where she became European Champion a year ago in Rome. She also competes in the 800m freestyle.
Matzerath in the final
Breaststroker Lucas Matzerath reached the final over 50 m breaststroke. The third-placed European was fourth fastest in the semifinals with a time of 26.89 seconds and improved his best time, which was only set in the preliminary heat, by another five-hundredths. The day before, the 23-year-old had missed a medal by just 16 hundredths of a second over twice the distance in fifth place.
Surprising end for Wellbrock
Completely surprisingly, Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock failed in the preliminary heat over 800 meters freestyle on Tuesday morning. After double gold in open water, he only finished ninth in the first pool race.