Henning Lambertz has been hired as the new head coach of the German Swimming Federation (the DSV) while he is in Istanbul with the German National Team at the World Short Course Championships.
Lambertz is currently the chief of one of Germany’s most elite training squads at Essen that includes swimmers like Lisa Vitting, Caroline Runhau, Isabelle Haerle, Dorothea Brandt, Sina Suter, Hendrik Feldwehr, and Christian vom Lehn.
He has developed a very strong breaststroke group, where he had the nation’s #1 ranked swimmer in four of the 6 breaststroke events last year. Aside from that, with sprinters like 21-year old Lisa Vitting, and Dorothea Brandt, as well as distance stars like Isabelle Haerle, he has shown the ability to develop swimmers of every specialty.
This hiring should bring some stability to a national team program that has been a bit of a mess since Dirk Lange moved on to Mexico almost a year ago. The 2012 London Olympics were a new low for this program, where they didn’t win a single pool medal. Even during Lange’s tenure, there was a lot of dissatisfaction as their 5 bronze medals at the World Championships were viewed as a step back after winning 4 golds, 4 silvers, and 1 bronze in 2009.
Interesting…during the London Games the German TV commentators and all the DSV experts were all commenting on how terribly the Germans performed in the water. Their answer…swim and train like the Americans. Henning Lambertz is a great coach, but I do not think this will change the direction that much. If Germany was trying to court an American coach to come over and rebuild their program who would you suggest they recruit?