The preliminary heat gives hope, but in the end it won’t work with the medal for the German freestyle swimmers on the first day of the European Championship. A woman from Magdeburg is one of the favorites on Friday. The Olympic champion has to wait after his corona infection.
Florian Wellbrock was still “uncertain” looking for his form when his Magdeburg training partners started promisingly in the European Championships in the “outdoor pool” in Rome. Vice world champion Lukas Märtens clearly missed a medal with the 4×200 meter freestyle relay at the start in the Foro Italico, but showed a strong performance as the starting swimmer. His partner Isabel Gose set her sights on her first precious metal on the long course after a confident lead.
“I want to fulfill my dream, which I couldn’t fulfill at the World Championships,” said the 20-year-old, who was second fastest in the 800-meter freestyle final on Friday. The third of the short course European Championships last year had twice missed the podium as the best and second best European at the World Championships in Budapest seven weeks ago – and therefore counts on good European Championship chances.
Märtens and his teammates Timo Sorgius, Henning Mühlleitner and Poul Zellmann in seventh place were about six and a half seconds short of bronze. “For me it was a second quicker than in the pre-race in the morning, I’m super satisfied. I’m super proud to have started with the guys here,” said the 20-year-old, who handed over in second place. After silver at the World Championships in Rome, Märtens is speculating on another medal in the 400-meter freestyle: “I think it’s feasible.” He coped better with his corona infection after the World Cup than his training colleague Wellbrock, who is still struggling with the consequences.
“It’s not quite as slipping as we had imagined,” said the Olympic champion and double world champion, who will not start the 800-meter freestyle on Friday because of his training deficit: “We’re now putting everything on the 1500 and we’ll see then whether something is still going on in the open water.” The 24-year-old only wants to decide whether the European Championship will continue for him after the preliminary run over the “long edges” on Monday.
“The form is absolutely changeable,” reported national coach Bernd Berkhahn on Thursday, “sometimes it’s good, sometimes not so good. That’s something that unsettles an athlete. When you jump in and don’t know what’s coming.” At the start of the European Championship, Wellbrock continued his training – but it took some getting used to. Because it was “a bit busy” in the competition pool in the morning, he moved to the neighboring swimming pool, to what Berkhahn says is a “very old, venerable pool” – “it looks great, but it’s not really practical”.
Open water world champion Leonie Beck swam at the start of the European Championship just for fun. The Würzburg native, who lives and trains for a year in Rome’s seaside resort of Ostia, reached the final in eighth place over 800 meters. She only started “because the pool is really cool – outdoor pool”. The 25-year-old used the race as a “training session” for next week’s open water competitions.
Gose had no chance of a medal as the final swimmer in the young women’s relay over 4×200 with Julia Mrozinski (Wiesbaden), Zoe Vogelmann (Heidelberg) and Chiara Klein (Potsdam) in fifth. Bronze was over four seconds away. Lucas Matzerath, sixth at the World Championships, advanced to the final in seventh place over 100 m breaststroke. For Sonnele Öztürk, on the other hand, it was the 15th place in the semifinals over 200 m backstroke.
