The 19 Club – Exercising Caution on Breakout German Johannas Liebmann’s 800 Free

Music fans of a certain age will be familiar with the “27 Club,” the morbid name for a group of famous musicians who all died at age 27 between 1969 and 1971.

Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were the founding members. In later generations, Kurt Cobain joined the Club in 1994 and Amy Winehouse was inducted in 2011.

After German 19-year-old Johannes Liebmann dropped 13 seconds to break the European Record on Sunday in Stockholm, eyes around the world lit up at the possibility of one of the ‘untouchable’ World Records from the supersuit era falling.

Liebmann’s 7:37.94 ranks him as the 6th-best performer of all-time, and within six seconds of Zhang Lin‘s 7:32.12 from 2009 that stands three seconds better than any other swimmer in history. As one commenter put it: he dropped 13 seconds in one swim, surely he can drop another five in the next five years?

While I am generally optimistic that Zhang’s record will eventually fall, especially as it now has much more focus from a whole generation who will grow up with the men’s 800 as an Olympic event, there is a reason to exercise caution with swimming’s 19 Club.

While looking through the all-time rankings, something kind of stunning jumped out at me: the number of elite swimmers in the 800 free who peaked at age 19.

Most recently, in 2023, Australian Sam Short joined the club when he swam 7:37.00 – the #4 performer ever and the fastest 19-year-old on record. While his career is far from over, injuries and illnesses and various other things have kept him from getting back there, and three years on, that’s still his best time by two-and-a-half seconds (he was 7:40.95 in October – the closest he’s come since 2023).

While the final chapters of his story aren’t yet written, others in the club include Sun Yang, who broke the World Record in the 1500 at 20 but who never again surpassed his best time in the 800 of 7:38.57 from when he was 19. Russia’s Aleksandr Stepanov went 7:42.47 in 2023, and Australia’s Mack Horton went 7:44.02 in 2015 and neither again surpassed those times.

Showing that it spans generations: Larsen Jensen, who held the mantle of American distance swimming for 15 years until Bobby Finke came along, peaked at 19 in this event in 2005, swimming 7:45.63.

There are other swimmers who peaked younger. The great Ian Thorpe swam 7:39.16 to set the World Record in 2001 when he was 19, and was never again faster. Lorenzo Galossi of Italy swam 7:43.37 in 2022 when he was 16 and stalled out. Franko Grgic lit the world up when he swam 7:45.92 in 2019 at 16 (along with 14:46.09 in the 1500), and basically disappeared from the sport thereafter.

There’s another phenomenon that seems to be in play here besides just age, and its prominence. Men’s distance swimmers, moreso than maybe any other event, seem to have a peak swim, an ultimate performance, at a height they never really capture again.

The top 11 performances in the men’s 800 free are held by 11 different men. In the women’s 800 free, they are held by just three different women. Bobby Finke is the first man to check in with a third performance on the all-time list at #17.

And whereas in the women’s 800 free, Katie Ledecky‘s #7 performance is the 9th-best swim in history, Gregorio Paltrinieri is the first man to log a #7 swim in the men’s lists – at the 55th best swim in history.

I had previously noticed in passing a similar trend in the men’s 1650 free in American collegiate swimming. If you look through the record progressions of the men’s 1650 free, almost none of them were ever close to that time before or after. Bobby Finke swam 14:12 three times, and his next-best swim was 14:22, so he’s the exception (in several ways in this trend). Zane Grothe was 14:18, and his next-best swim was 14:29.

Similar patterns hold for record setters like Clark Smith (14:22/14:33), Martin Grodzki (14:24/14:34), and Chad la Tourette (14:24/14:34).

So my point is caution, I think, with Liebmann. He’s training with the world’s hottest distance coach Bernd Berkhahn and among the world’s best distance group at Madgeburg, so the pieces are in play. The German men seem an unstoppable force in middle-to-distance swimming, and someone has to break the record.

I’m just saying that in this event, in particular, I think we have to exercise caution that the 7:32 has stood as long as it has for a reason, and that there is reason for tempering excitement.

But nonetheless, YOLO, give it a full send, young lad. The world is rooting for you.