On the 6th and final day of their 2011 National Championship and World Championship Trials, the German swim team exploded with a slew of top-10 times. There has been concern and frustration throughout the week about the huge-level of difficulty of the German World Championship time standards, and whether or not they’d meet coach Dirk Lange’s expectations of 18 qualifying swimmers, but the swimmers really stepped up to the task on the final day of competition.
With 10 individual finals on the day, fans were treated to one of the best and most exciting sessions in the world this year. Working in reverse, Benjamin Starke put an exclamation mark on the session when he flew to the top of the world rankings in the men’s 100 fly. His time of 51.65 bested Michael Phelps’ time from the Indianapolis Grand Prix by a tenth. Steffen Deibler, who was the fastest swimmer in prelims to also put himself in the top 10, slipped off of that time to finish 2nd in 52.74.
Though Starke’s was the last exciting swim of the meet, it was not the day’s only. After a good swim in the 200 free, and a so-so swim in the 100, fans across the globe were looking towards Britta Steffen’s 50 free today for an announcement that she’s back in the upper echelon of sprinting for good, or otherwise the grim news that she still hasn’t recovered from the injuries that have hampered her for the last year.
She emphatically stated, with her swim, that she has returned nearly to her former glory with a win in 24.67. That’s only .01 seconds off of her lifetime best outside of the rubber-suit era of 2008 and 2009. That’s good for 4th in the world rankings this year. Dorothea Brandt gave her a good push to end up 2nd in 24.78, making this the first race of the meet where Germany has qualified two swimmers for the World Championships. That time also takes her to 6th in the rankings this year.
A huge exhale went out around the swimming world when Paul Biedermann won the men’s 200 free in 1:45.72, which pushes him to 3rd in the world rankings, and easily clears the qualifying mark for Shanghai. Unbelievably, it was not until his last swim that Biedermann took a big for Shanghai, and this swim confirms the notion that he might be focusing most of his efforts on this 200 (instead of the 400, where he’s also the defending World Champion and World Record Holder).
Tim Wallburger (1:47.61), Clemens Rapp (1:47.78), and Benjamine Starke (1:47.98) lined themselves up for relay spots, with USC Trojan Dimitri Colupaev (1:48.32) and Markus Deibler (1:48.66) in-line for potential prelims swims. Those are important spots, as this relay is probably Germany’s best chance at a medal at the World Championships. Colupaev’s time, incidentally, breaks the USC team record set frenchman Clement Lefert, who last year broke Klete Keller’s record.
The march of first-time qualifiers for German’s most elite swimmers continued when Helge Meeuw, the 2009 silver medalist, won the 100 back in 53.47. That time places him 4th in the world this year. The runner-up in the race was Marco Di Carli in 54.43. That’s the third career-best time of the meet for Di Carli, to go with his Championships in the 50 and 100 freestyles.
Christian Vom Lehn completed the breaststroke sweep when he won the 200, his best race, in 2:08.97. Not only does that time move him to 2nd in the world this year (though well behind world leader Naoya Tomita), it cuts more than two seconds off of his personal best. In fact, this time, swum in long course, ties exactly his best ever short course time, which is quite impressive. The teenager is really coming into his own on the world scene, and is a great darkhorse candidate for a medal in this race in either Shanghai or London.
Christian Kubusch swam his second top-15 time of the meet in the men’s 800 free. His 7:55.43 (on top of his title in the 1500 on the first day of the meet) puts him 7th in the world this year, but wasn’t enough to make the German qualifying standard. For a young swimmer like him, it’s hopeful that the DSV will make an exception in this instance, given that he was the 4th-best swimmer in the world in this race last season, and is almost assuredly a finalists in the race at Worlds if he’s invited to make the trip.
Georgia Bulldog Martin Grodzki was 2nd in 7:59.54, which is a career-best time for him.
In the women’s 100 back, it took a sub-minute time to qualify for Shanghai, and while nobody came close to that time, Jenny Mensing completed the backstroke sweep with a time of 1:00.78. In the women’s 100 fly, Sina Sutter won in 59.01, ahead of Theresa Michalak in 59.73.
Caroline Ruhnau won the women’s 200 breaststroke in 2:27.60 after a fantastic closing 50 to overtake 100 champion Sarah Poewe (2:27.61).
In the women’s 400 free, Isabelle Haerle picked up her second event win of the meet in 4:12.81. Silke Lippok went out very hard in the race, but died badly over the final 50 meters (Haerle outswam her by a full two seconds on the last length) to finish in 2:14.09. But Lippok’s hard start, and Haerle’s great finish, pushed both swimmers to career-best times.
The overall most impressive race of this meet I think is the 200m free (with due respect to the huge surprises that were the 100m free and the 200m breast). The top four’s composite time is actually only 0.07 off of the time swum by the chinese and 0.34 faster than the Russians. This is going to be a very hot event this summer, as the Germans may have supplanted the Australians (at least for now) as the best dark horse candidate. However, the Germans trials are much later than the other ones and the swimmers here swam very close to their personal bests.I dont expect the team to improve as much as the other mentioned teams.