Biedermann comes out with big 100 free win, two more age records fall at finals of German Nationals day three

Full results available here.

Paul Biedermann continues to impress in his return to the German swimming scene, taking another national championship on day 3 of the national championship meet in Berlin.

After a 400 free win on Friday, Biedermann put up a 48.31 to win the 100 Saturday, just missing the German record of 48.24 held by Marco di Carli.

That time does rank Biedermann in the top 5 in the world this year, though, sitting 5th behind Olympic gold medalist Nathan Adrian, Brazilian speedster Cesar Cielo and Aussie stars James Magnussen and Cameron McEvoy.

That 100 freestyle kicked off the meet, and Biedermann had to fight hard for that opening win, beating Steffen Deibler by just a couple tenths. Deibler’s 48.56 now sits 8th in the world.

The women’s race went to Dorothea Brandt in 55.05, just beating Anika Bruhn by three tenths.

Deibler’s younger brother Markus went on to pick up a win later on in the 200 IM. His 1:58.00 knocked off the rest of the A final by almost 1.5 seconds, and moves him to 8th in the world.

(Update: we originally credited Steffen Deibler with the 200 IM win. The story has been updated, as it was his brother Markus who took the event.)

Also in that event, 14-year-old rising star Johannes Hintze broke another national age record. His 2:03.68 smashed the previous mark, listed on the German swimming website as 2:07.18, which Hintze went two months ago.  Hintze finished 6th overall.

The women’s 200 IM went to Theresa Michalak, back in Europe after her first semester with the U.S.’s Florida Gators of the NCAA. Michalak went 2:13.16 to easily top the field.

The first age record of the day came earlier in the meet: Julia Willers went 1:08.86 in the 100 breast to take down the 18-year-olds mark of 1:09.21. Willers was hot on the trail of the win, but wound up third overall, just a half-second out of gold. Caroline Ruhnau‘s 1:08.24 took the win with Vanessa Grimberg second in 1:08.48.

In the men’s race, Henrik Feldwehr cracked the minute barrier, going 59.81 to power away with the win over Marco Koch (1:00.08). Feldwehr, the national record-holder, now sits 5th in the world for 2014.

Franziska Hentke took the women’s 200 fly, going 2:07.67 for a dominating 5-second victory. Hentke’s blowout win ties her season best, which already sat 7th in our world rankings:

The men’s race was an outstanding one, with Robin Backhaus just edging out Philip Lücker by .01. Backhaus finished in 1:58.73 to just beat out Lücker’s 1:58.74, and Markus Gierke wasn’t far behind in third place at 1:59.01. In the preliminaries, Moritz Brandt took down an age record, going 2:01.92. He took 9th in the A final at night.

In the 200 back, women’s National record-holder Jenny Mensing blasted to a 2:09.25, winning by a full second. On the men’s side it was also the national record-holder triumphing, as Jan-Philip Glania went 1:57.40 to top Christian Diener.

Also swum were two distance freestyle races, where another athlete cracked the world top 10. In the men’s 800, Soren Meissner went 7:54.93, the 8th-fastest time in the world for 2014.

The women swam the 1500, with Sarah Kohler coming out with the win at 16:26.28, just eight tenths up on Isabelle Harle.

Sunday will be the final day of competition from Berlin for these German Championships.