2021 LEN EUROPEAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, November 2nd – Sunday, November 7th
- Aquatics Palace, Kazan Russia
- SCM (25m)
- Prelim recap
- Results
Here in Kazan, the men’s 1500m freestyle saw a new champion step onto the podium, as Germany’s Florian Wellbrock denied Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri repeat gold from 2 years ago.
Stopping the clock in a time of 14:09.88, 24-year-old Wellbrock checked in with the fastest time of his career, as well as a new German national record. Paltrinieri settled for silver in a time of 14:13.07 while bronze tonight went to fellow German Sven Schwarz in 14:26.24.
Entering this meet, the German national record stood at the 14:20.44 Jan Wolfgarten put on the books in 2009. Multi-Olympic medalist Wellbrock’s personal best rested at the 14:28.19 he logged nearly 3 years ago, so both marks were obliterated with what Wellbrock just produced.
In fact, Wellbrock’s performance here now renders the German as the world’s 3rd fastest performer ever. Paltrinieri leads the all-time rankings with his 14:08.06 World Record from 2015 while Ukrainian freestyle ace Mykhailo Romanchuk is the 2nd best man in history with a time of 14:09.14.
As such, Wellbrock became just the 3rd man ever to break the 14:10 threshold in this men’s short course meters 1500 freestyle.
Wellbrock is a true distance freestyler, with the man competing in both pool and open water while being dominant in both disciplines. In 2019, he became the first World Champion in both the 1500m free and the 10k open water event. He nearly repeated that same mega feat in Tokyo at this summer’s Olympic Games, capturing 10k gold and bronze in the 1500m free.
After his gold medal-winning performance, Wellbrock said, “It was a really good race, it’s a new national record by 13 seconds and I’m getting closer to the world record.
“It was a tough race and I’m pretty happy. I had only two weeks of rest after the Olympics and I already started training right away as we have a lot of events, now the short-course majors and then the long-course World and Europeans next year and of course the open water events.”
As for silver medalist Paltrinieri, the 27-year-old 2016 Olympic champion said, “I’m really happy with today’s race and time. For now, this is a super result.
“Luckily, the best long-distance swimmers are Europeans and it’s always a pleasure to race with them. Today I wouldn’t have managed to swim under 14:13, to be as fast as Florian.
“Slowly I’m returning to my best shape so now I’m more than happy. We’ll see what happens at the short-course Worlds. I need to continue working to be at the top level by December and then we’ll see what happens. Again, I didn’t see myself clock 14:13 today at this stage of the season, which is very long and full of events.”
Finke (luckily for the US, us) smashed the hegemony which lasted after Rio, through 2 World Championships, so Paltrinieri does have a point
ONLY 4 swimmers outside of Europe made it to the 32 spots in 800 and 1500 finals in two WCs totaling ONE bronze medal (Mack Horton) and ONE 8th place for Grothe. Looks pretty decisively European to me.
Come on, Greg only meant to say that the majority of elite male distance swimmers are European. He is not the kind of guy to disrespect a fellow swimmer.
exactly, if anyone, he is always graceful and respectful
In his own words, he is amazing 🤌🤌
Finke (luckily for the US, us) smashed the hegemony which lasted after Rio, through 2 World Championships, so Paltrinieri does have a point
ONLY 4 swimmers outside of Europe made it to the 32 spots in 800 and 1500 finals in two WCs totaling ONE bronze medal (Mack Horton) and ONE 8th place for Grothe. Looks pretty decisively European to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2019_World_Aquatics_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_1500_metre_freestyle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2017_World_Aquatics_Championships_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_800_metre_freestyle
People prefer to get offended by a harmless comment with no bad intentions. Paltrinieri sure didnt want to disrespect Finke
What Paltrinieri meant is that he has Wellbrock and Romanchuk to push him at every European meet, while in the US there’s a lack of competition in the long distance events. There’s lots of Grand Prix stops where no one manages to get close to breaking 15.00 …
Lol has he forgotten about Finke already?
Sounds like he is really trying to forget about him……will be very hard for Wellbrock to totally forget the biggest race on the biggest stage though LOL!!
No doubting Wellbrock’s ability in the water though, he is quick.
“Luckily, the best long-distance swimmers are Europeans”
Some shade casting on Finke there!
They might be the best but he doesn’t have the gold medal in neither lol
He got the gold in the 10k, I think that counts…..
Didn’t Paltrinieri get bronze?
Dude got mono like 3 weeks before the games and still pulled a bronze
Finke is sus. 25+ on a last 50 is pretty insane and he came out of nowhere. If a russian or chinese (like legend Sun Yang) did that , nobody would trust their integrity
Granted, SCY is very different than LCM, but Finke had been a star on the college scene for a little bit at least that lends some credibility to his swims. But no doubt there’s a *bit* of American bias on here as well..
Sun Yang did do that lol, in 2012 he came back in a 25.68 in the 1500 to go 14:31.02, pretty sus
Obviously. Him, Hafnaoui and Jacobs (men’s 100 m sprint) probably were the most blatant cheaters at the games.
I feel like you could say that about titmus, litherland, or literally anyone else with very good closing speed
Alexa, play ‘Enter Sandman’.
“Luckily, the best long-distance swimmers are Europeans and it’s always a pleasure to race with them. Today I wouldn’t have managed to swim under 14:13, to be as fast as Florian.”
Bobby finke says waddup