Florian Wellbrock, Germany’s Distance Ace, Makes Noise in 400 Freestyle
Germany continued its short series of Olympic-qualifying competitions in Magdeburg on Saturday and distance ace Florian Wellbrock supplied the performance of the day with a stellar effort in the 400-meter freestyle. The 2019 world champion in the 1500 freestyle and 10k open-water event, Wellbrock posted a time of 3:44.77 in the 400 free and was followed to the wall by Lukas Martens in 3:45.29. Wellbrock was actually quicker in prelims, going 3:44.35.
Meanwhile, Isabel Gose prevailed in the 400 freestyle in 4:06.11, with Sarah Kohler going 4:08.21 in the prelims of the event before scratching the final to focus on the 1500 freestyle. In the longer event, Kohler touched the wall first in 16:07.71. She could be a contender for a minor medal in the event when it makes its Olympic debut in Tokyo.
Other winners included Franziska Hentke in the women’s 200 butterfly, thanks to a time of 2:09.95, and Lena Riedemann, with a mark of 56.00 in the women’s 100 freestyle. She was 55.80 in prelims. On the men’s side, Christoph Fildebrandt won the 100 freestyle in 49.34 and Danny Schmidt went 4:18.82 to win the 400 individual medley.