Florian Wellbrock He once again missed out on medals in open water swimming at the World Championships in Qatar. On Wednesday, Magdeburger placed ninth as the defending five-kilometer champion. after finishing 29th in the double distance on Sunday. “It was better than the ten kilometers, but it still wasn't good. “It wasn’t what we planned,” Wellbrock said.
With a time of 51:36.70 minutes, he finished 7.40 seconds behind the winner, Frenchman Logan Fontaine. His compatriot Marc-Antoine Olivier won silver, while Italian Domenico Acerenza won bronze. Wellbrock also had to admit defeat to his teammate Oliver Klemet, who finished eighth.
Wellbrock set a huge pace in the first lap and thus evened the field of participants. Even after that, he always stayed ahead and seemed to have everything under control. However, things calmed down a bit so the large group was able to catch up and 15 swimmers tackled the final kilometer in eight seconds. When the pace increased, there was nothing left for him to add.
The Bremen native had so far won nine World Cup medals in open water. At the last World Championships in Japan, Wellbrock even won the Olympic ten-kilometer race. This time, however, the ten kilometer race did not go as planned.
On Sunday, Wellbrock, surprisingly, only ranked 29th. His condition is still good, he stated after analyzing his bad sporting streak in cold waters with a temperature of about 20 degrees. “I must say that it was not a formal or preparation error, I simply had to pay tribute to the weather conditions,” explained the Olympic champion.
Leonie Beck also loses both titles
In the morning, Leonie Beck, double world champion from Fukuoka, also swam well short of the medal, occupying 14th place. She was 22.7 seconds behind the Dutch winner Sharon van Rouwendaal, who had already won the title of the ten kilometers on the weekend. The silver went to the Australian Chelsea Gubecka, while the Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha took the bronze. Jeannette Spiwoks (Essen/+29.4) finished just behind Beck in 16th place.
“I'm pretty disappointed,” Beck said: “In the end I tried everything and gave everything, but it didn't work.” According to Beck, the 19.4 degree water temperature was not the problem this time. The water was about a degree colder than during the six-mile race, “but for half the distance it was fine. Of course I was cold afterwards, but it was nothing tragic.”
On Saturday, Beck, who lives and trains in Italy, swam only to 20th place in ten kilometers in a water temperature of 20.2 degrees. However, the woman from Würzburg had already secured her Olympic ticket for this distance at last year's World Championships, when she became double world champion of ten kilometers and the non-Olympic five kilometers in Fukuoka, Japan.