Germany’s Märtens Fires Off 14:40.28 LCM 1500 Freestyle

2022 Pokal d. Gothaer and Friends Meet (GER)

• March 25th – March 27th
• Magdeburg, Germany
• LCM (50m)
• Results

The Pokal d. Gothaer & Friends Meet wrapped up from Magdeburg, Germany yesterday, with the likes of new training partners Mykhailo Romanchuk and Florian Wellbrock among the high-profile athletes in the water.

Romanchuk hails from Ukraine and represents the country’s only medalist in swimming at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics with his silver in the 1500m free there.

After joining Germany’s Wellbrock for an altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada, Spain earlier this month, Romanchuk stayed on in Germany after Wellbrock and his wife, Olympian Sarah Kohler, offered assistance. You can read more about Romanchuk’s circumstances here.

Here in Magdeburg, 25-year-old Romanchuk raced the mens’ 400m free, finishing off the podium in 4th place. He logged a final swim of 3:55.84 after having checked in with a prelims outing of 3:54.33.

Taking the men’s 400m free was Lukas Märtens, with the event representing just one of several impressive results for the 20-year-old at this meet.

Märtens produced a winning mark of 3:46.10 to beat out countryman Sven Schwarz and the aforementioned Wellbrock, who claimed silver and bronze with times of 3:48.85 and 3:54.73, respectively.

Splitting 56.22/58.32/56.57/54.99, Märtens beat out what he put up in Tokyo last year, with his 3:46.10 slicing .20 off of his 3:46.30 registered at the 2020 Olympic Games for 12th place. The rising star owns a lifetime best of 3:44.86 from last year’s Olympic Trials.

Demonstrating his versatility, Märtens also reaped gold in the men’s 200m backstroke, posting a winning time of 1:56.97. The result represents Märtens’ first occasion ever under the 1:57 threshold, with his previous personal best sitting at the 1:57.54 he logged last December. His win here keeps him ranked as Germany’s 5th fastest men’s 200m backstroker of all time.

However, the loudest noise from Märtens came in the 1500m free. The man stopped the clock in a vicious 14:40.28, a new lifetime best by nearly 7 seconds.

Splitting as follows, Märtens kept Wellbrock at bay, forcing the two-time Tokyo Olympic medalist to settle for silver in 14:47.03 while Oliver Klemet rounded out the top 3 in 15:50.43.

Märtens’ effort from here in Magdeburg would have grabbed the silver medal last year in Tokyo, behind American Robert Finke’s 14:39.65 but ahead of Romanchuk’s 14:40.66. Märtens remains as Germany’s #2 performer all-time in this event and now the 11th fastest performer to-date, but he’s creeping up on Wellbrock’s national record of 14:36.15 set back in 2018.

There was a tie in the men’s 800m free, with Oliver Klemet and Sven Schwarz both reaching the wall simultaneously in a time of 7:48.96 while Wellbrock took the bronze in 7:59.48.

On the women’s front, 19-year-old Isabel Gose did some damage across multiple events, including the women’s 800m free. Gose topped the podium in a mark of 8:23.88, getting under the qualification time for this year’s FINA World Championships in Budapest.

She also snagged victories in the 100m free in 56.09 and the 200m free in 1:58.12, the latter of which represented the only time of the field to get under 2:01.

Gose finaled in the women’s 400m free at the Tokyo Olympic Games, registering a time of 6th in 4:04.98. Finaling added her name to the World Championships roster already for that event, as Wellbrock’s bronze did in his 1500m free.