Florian Wellbrock no longer has a chance of winning a medal in the Olympic pool. The 26-year-old is once again eliminated in the preliminary round. He does not want to comment on this at the moment.
Florian Wellbrock took a shortcut after the next big disappointment. The freestyle swimmer did not take the usual route through the interview zone of the La Défense Arena, but disappeared first. Starting as the Olympic bronze medalist from Tokyo, the 26-year-old was eliminated in the preliminary round of the 1500 meter freestyle. 14th place in 15:01.88 minutes: Wellbrock completely collapsed on his favorite stretch in the pool. Preliminary round winner Daniel Wiffen from Ireland was more than 21 seconds faster than him.
Wellbrock had already missed the final in the 800 meters, but remained confident afterwards. This had already happened to him once at the World Championships in February. He then made a strong comeback in the 1500 meters and took silver. This time it didn’t work out. The 2024 Olympic Games will end without Wellbrock winning a medal in the pool.
Form should actually be correct
According to his coach, the Bremen native, who trains in Magdeburg with national long-distance coach Bernd Berkhahn, was actually in good shape. “The form is still good, everything is great,” Berkhahn said in preparation for the 1500-meter race. Why he performed so well, however, remains a mystery for now.
The second German starter, Sven Schwarz, swam significantly faster than Wellbrock in 14:51.97 minutes. But it wasn’t enough for him to make it to the final either. After the race, the two briefly high-fived each other in the water. When asked if he knew what was going on with Wellbrock, Schwarz said: “There is a lot of respect. I can’t say anything about that now. We didn’t talk, there was no time for that. That can happen to anyone.”
For Wellbrock, the Olympic Games are not over yet, even after his last appearance in the pool. The 2021 Olympic champion wants to swim for medals in open water in Tokyo next week. But first he has to recover from a major setback.
Source: Stern
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