Florian Wellbrock wrote his “personal summer fairy tale” in Tokyo Bay. In the Odaiba Marine Park, the double world champion gave the competition no chance and won the first German open water gold in Olympic history. After bronze in the pool over 1500 m, Wellbrock crowned his adventure in Japan and, together with his fiancée Sarah Köhler, gave the German swimmers a respectable record. With three medals, Wellbrock said on ZDF, the DSV should be “satisfied”.
The 23-year-old from Magdeburg had dominated the ten-kilometer race from the start and swam out a considerable lead over the competitors at the finish. Five-kilometer world champion Kristof Rasovszky (+25.3) and the Italian European champion Gregorio Paltrinieri (+27.4) came in second and third, well behind. Wellbrock seemed a little surprised at his own dominance at first. “The goal was a medal, I hadn’t speculated on gold,” said the German swimmer: “Maybe I needed the little damper over 800 m to come back so strong today.”
In his first pool competition, Wellbrock had led 50 m from the finish, but in fourth place he missed the podium. This time he confidently brought home the lead. Wellbrock’s club colleague Rob Muffels, who was third in the 2019 World Cup, fell back early and had nothing to do with the medals. At the finish he was 4: 29.6 minutes behind Wellbrock in eleventh place and was visibly pissed off. Even Rio Olympic champion Ferry Weertman (Netherlands) in seventh had no chance against the outstanding Wellbrock. For the German team it was the ninth gold medal in Tokyo, for the swimmers the third precious metal. In addition to Wellbrock, his fiancée Sarah Köhler, who followed the open water competition at home with Wellbrock’s parents, made it onto the podium in third place over 1500 m. She hardly had to tremble, Wellbrock made the race too dominant. Wellbrock and Köhler had ended the German dry spell in Tokyo and won the first pool medals after two zero numbers in London and Rio.
Nevertheless, the swimming pair was not completely satisfied, Wellbrock was annoyed about the missed medal in the 800 m and the gold chance awarded over 1500 m, Köhler ultimately lacked the strength for her second podium over 800 m. All the greater the jubilation at home about a historical gold in the almost 30 degree warm water of the bay in Tokyo. Wellbrock is not only the first German Olympic swimming champion since Michael Groß in 1988, but also the first German to win gold in open water. The discipline has been Olympic in Beijing since 2008. At that time Thomas Lurz won bronze and four years later silver in London. In Rio, the German marathon swimmers went empty-handed, at that time Wellbrock only started over the 1500 m as a teenager.
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