Lukas Märtens looked at the scoreboard for a long time and was a little annoyed about narrowly missing out on the title, Isabel Gose was overjoyed and let the water splash and raised her fist in celebration: double bronze within 30 minutes at the start of the World Cup, the pool swimmer shouted to the German European champions in Doha brought out very different emotions.
“It was extremely close, more could have happened,” said Märtens, who clocked 3:42.96 minutes in the 400 m freestyle final, just 25 hundredths of a second behind the new world champion Kim Woo-Min from South Korea: “I want to more and more. If two tenths are missing from the gold medal, then I say to myself: I would have trained an hour longer somewhere.”
His Magdeburg club colleague Gose, on the other hand, was overjoyed about her first World Cup medal in a German record time. “I’m super relieved. I said before: I wouldn’t get a chance like that again,” said the 21-year-old, who beat her old record by 23 hundredths in 4:02.39 minutes over the same route: “It was so important for me now to take this step forward.” Gose took advantage of the opportunity because the top favorites were missing in Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus (Australia), US star Katie Ledecky and Canadian Summer McIntosh.
Two German records
The first two medals for the German team on the tenth day of the competition in Doha could quickly be followed by the next: Because short course European champion Angelina Köhler swam as the fastest with two German records in the 100 m butterfly and became the favorite for the final on Monday (5:09 p.m. CET). . “I just love the pool here, I’m perfectly prepared,” said the 23-year-old, who was three tenths below her lead time in the semifinals in 56.11 seconds: “The hard work is slowly paying off.”
Also for Märtens, who had already won bronze in Fukuoka in 2023 and silver in Budapest in 2022. The 22-year-old has had to repeatedly struggle with health problems since the start of the season and, among other things, had to miss the German short course championship in November. “If you consider how little I was able to train, it’s sensational,” said Märtens and added with a view to the Olympic Games: “Paris is not far away and we are on the right track.”
Gose, who also secured the Paris ticket with her first medal, which Märtens already had, can now also plan for the Olympics. “It felt great, I swam my race,” said the 21-year-old, who finally had a long-awaited dream come true: an award ceremony at a world championships.
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Köhler is also “definitely toying with a medal”. The Berliner, who won European Championship gold in the 200 m butterfly in December, had already improved her German record by 64 hundredths that morning. “It’s a world apart,” she said. She emphasized that Olympic qualification is just as important as the precious metal: “The goal is to get first to fourth place in order to get the ticket.”
Breaststroke swimmer Lucas Matzerath also made it to the 100 m final on Monday (5:02 p.m. CET). The Frankfurter swam to fifth place in 59.30 seconds. Melvin Imoudu (Potsdam), however, missed the final in 14th place in 1:00.08 minutes.
