2025 SWIM OPEN STOCKHOLM
- Saturday, April 12th – Tuesday, April 15th
- Stockholm, Sweden
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
- Entries/Live Results
The 2025 Swim Open Stockholm concluded tonight with Germany’s Lukas Märtens following up his astounding 400m freestyle World Record with another huge swim, this time in the 800m free.
23-year-old Märtens blasted a winning effort of 7:39.10 to beat the field by 2 seconds en route to registering a new lifetime best and lowering his own former national benchmark.
His teammate and 1500m freestyle victor here Florian Wellbrock snagged the silver medal in 7:41.10 while Oliver Klemet made it a German sweep with a time of 7:44.92 for bronze.
Entering this competition, Märtens’ career-swiftest performance checked in at the 7:39.48 produced for bronze at the 2023 World Championships.
Although he was just .38 ahead of that previous result, the man negative-split his race by a large amount this time around.
Märtens opened in 3:51.07 on the front half but sped his way to 3:48.03 on the back 400m, nearly 3 seconds faster.
Splits by 200:
- 1:53.42
- 1:57.65
- 1:55.91
- 1:52.12 (!!!!!)
Of note, China’s Zhang Lin also negatively split his race when setting the longstanding World Record of 7:32.12 in 2009 – 3:46.79/3:45.33 – including an other-worldly final 200m of 1:51.76.
Märtens bumped himself up to now rank as the 9th-best performer in history.
Top 10 Men’s LCM 800 Freestyle Performers All-Time
- Zhang Lin (CHN) – 7:32.12, 2009
- Ous Mellouli (TUN) – 7:35.27, 2009
- Ahmed Hafnaoui (TUN) – 7:37.00, 2023
- Sam Short (AUS) – 7:37.76, 2023
- Daniel Wiffen (IRL) – 7:38.19, 2024
- Sun Yang (CHN) – 7:38.57, 2011
- Grant Hackett (AUS) – 7:38.65, 2005
- Bobby Finke (USA) – 7:38.67, 2023
- Lukas Märtens (GER) – 7:39.10, 2025
- Ian Thorpe (AUS) – 7:39.16, 2001
He also now dethrones Irish Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen to rank #1 in the world this season and the only swimmer on the planet to have a sub-7:40 time thus far.
2024-2025 LCM Men 800 Free
MÄRTENS
7:39.10
| 2 | Florian WELLBROCK | GER | 7:41.10 | 04/15 |
| 3 | Daniel Wiffen | IRL | 7:41.52 | 04/13 |
| 4 | Oliver KLEMET | GER | 7:44.92 | 04/15 |
| 5 | Samuel Short | AUS | 7:45.02 | 03/08 |
| 6 | Sven Schwarz | GER | 7:46.01 | 04/15 |
| 7 | Kristóf RASOVSZKY | HUN | 7:47.04 | 04/13 |
| 8 | Kuzey Tuncelli | TUR | 7:47.46 | 03/07 |
| 9 | Dávid BETLEHEM | HUN | 7:48.02 | 04/13 |
| 10 | Alexander Stepanov | RUS | 7:49.36 | 04/15 |
is there a vid?
Not saying he will but Martens is the kind of athlete that’ll eventually break the 800 world record not a Wiffen or a Finke.
Yeah it’s kinda a prerequisite to have at least 3:41 speed in the 400 to have a shot at it
Yeah I’d honestly think of all the active swimmers right now martens has a shot to be within 2-3 seconds of that world record. I also think this any swimmer who breaks 3:40 will have a real shot of the world record now.
Yeah I think it’s way more likely to be a 400/800 guy than an 800/1500 guy. Gotta be out in something stoopid.
Zhang was out in 3:46.7. Finke’s best 400 is 3:46.2. Math just doesn’t math.
Just saw Daniel Wiffen fall to his knees in a Tesco parking lot.
He’s punching air right now
Daniel Wiffen punching the air rn
Victor Johansson (Sweden) finished 5th but he is still fast enough to be 10th on this ranking with his 7.49.72 at the stockholm meet (not considering what might have happened at the Russian or Italian meets today
——
Posted before the updated ranking, maybe he would be 11th now?
he has podium potential across 4 events now — 200 – 800 free and 200 back. im pretty curious what his ceiling is with the 200 back in particular…
Thorpe did the same thing when he went 7:39 I believe. Might just be the more comfortable way for a 200/400 guy to pace an 800m race
Yes, Thorpe negative split in both of his WR swims:
When he swam 800 competitively for the first time in 2001 Australia trials 7:41.59 to beat Hackett (who also swam under Perkins WR of 7:46)
And in 2001 Fukuoka 7:39.16
Thorpe never swam 800 aside from those two swims.
I can’t think of another swimmer who broke WRs in their first and second competitive swims.
Optimized splits maybe a 7:36? It was quite an aggressive negative split.
also a fast first 50 – 25.59
He could probably do a 3:47/3:49.
Makes me wonder why he didn’t attack the 800 like he did the 400.