Swimming World Championship
Silver coup for Anna Elendt at World Cup: “Cake always works”
Anna Elendt cheers with her silver medal at the award ceremony. Photo: Jo Kleindl/dpa
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Germany has another individual short distance medalist at World Swimming Championships. Silver in the 100m breaststroke final by Anna Elendt came as a surprise.
Anna Elendt clapped along to the Italian national anthem at the award ceremony and was already looking forward to a possible medal cake in the team hotel.
She really deserved it after an impressive final over 100 meters breaststroke at the swimming world championships in Budapest, which was rewarded with silver. With the second precious metal after silver for Lukas Märtens over 400 meters freestyle two days earlier, the German team already has as many medals after three days of competition in the pool as in the title fights two years ago. And the appearances of the greatest hope for a medal, Florian Wellbrock, are yet to come. He is second in the heats in the 800-meter freestyle final.
“Wanted to get to the final and see what’s up”
Her silver coup in front of her parents, who had traveled from Frankfurt, briefly left the otherwise eloquent 20-year-old speechless. Elendt received the medal with a big smile and proudly presented it to the photographers. She didn’t seem to have really realized the success at that moment, just as little as she did shortly afterwards, when she was already signing the first autographs. Only when she answered journalists’ questions in the catacombs of the Duna Arena was she back to normal.
“I wanted to get to the final and see what was possible. Then it became a silver medal. I’m very happy, »said Elendt and said a cake like the one Märtens had gotten wouldn’t be bad. “Cake always works.” But first she wanted to go for a walk to the hotel with her parents. “I’ve already seen them, I was very happy about that,” she said. Only Italy’s Benedetta Pilato was five hundredths of a second faster in an exciting race.
With silver, a 13-year wait for a World Championship medal in a short distance came to an end for the German Swimming Association. The title fights in 2009 last saw individual gold medals over 50 or 100 meters, including two gold medals for Britta Steffen.
Wellbrock gained confidence
Wellbrock now wants to add to his worry distance. However, it will not be a duel between club colleagues for precious metal, because silver winner Lukas Märtens was “empty in the tank” in the 800-meter lead. While Wellbrock, as the second fastest of the heats, is one of the top favorites for a medal, Märtens gets an involuntary break. Recovery seems badly needed ahead of the 1500m showdown at the end of the pool events. “I definitely need the three days,” said the man from Magdeburg after the 200-meter final, his branch, which he finished seventh and with a good feeling.
Open water Olympic champion Wellbrock gained self-confidence. “It was rock solid. I thought we were going faster. I had expected a time of 7:42 minutes,” said Wellbrock, who clocked in after 7:44.75 minutes and was five hundredths of a second slower than his friend and training partner Michailo Romantschuk from Ukraine. A handshake and a pat on the back between the two showed that they get along very well despite the competition. “If no German team had invited me, I wouldn’t be here,” said Romantschuk.
“You could see that the tank was empty”
Märtens, on the other hand, was exhausted and didn’t even look for excuses. “You could see that the tank was empty. There was really nothing more. I wanted to get to the final, but it wasn’t enough,” said the 20-year-old, who clearly showed the strain of his previous performances over 400 meters and 200 meters freestyle.
Meanwhile, the Italian Thomas Ceccon set the first world record at this World Cup. The 21-year-old won the 100-meter backstroke in 51.60 seconds. Ceccon undercut the almost six-year-old record of the American Ryan Murphy, who was second this time, by 25 hundredths of a second.
