The German Swimming Federation (DSV – Deutscher Schwimmverband) announced the German national squads for 2016/2017 on the DSV homepage.
To get into the national A-team, the swimmers had to achieve an A final at the Rio Olympic Games – this condition also includes a relay participation. Some athletes from the A-team have indeed left open if they continue to swim competitively in 2017 as Philip Heintz, Jan-Philip Glania and Isabelle Harle (Open Water).
There was no so called “elite squad” named like in 2015/2016 that included Paul Biedermann, Marco Koch und Franziska Hentke.
On the women’s side, Sarah Köhler and Isabelle Härle (Open Water) made it into the current German national A squad. 11 men join the men’s team: Steffen Deibler, Christian Diener, Christoph Fildebrandt, Jan-Philip Glania, Philip Heintz, Jacob Heidtmann, Marco Koch, Clemens Rapp, Florian Vogel, Damian Wierling, Christian vom Lehn.
Germany named more squads depending on different factors:
For example, there are squads for the youngsters and for swimmers who haven’t been able to make the national A or B team because of illness or injuries.
The special DSV-team takes on the national squad athletes who did not reach any standard for a national squad last season. The DSV-team should be a chance for those athletes to achieve the status of a federal squad again. These are for example: Lisa Höpink, Emily Siebrecht or Tobias Niestroy.
