2019 German National Championships: Day 2 prelims recap

2019 German National Swimming Championships

• Berlin
• August 1-4, 2019
  
• Schwimm- und Sprunghalle im Europa-Sportpark (SSE)
• Meet Site 
• Schedule
• Startlists
• Results
• Psych Sheet
• German TV and livestream schedule

The 2019 German National Swimming Championships kicked off in Berlin yesterday. This year’s National Championships are a must for all German participants at the World Championships in Gwangju, which ended on Sunday. The main reason ist that the German Swimming Championships are one of ten German Championships of different sports taking place in Berlin at the same time, the event is called: “THE FINALS”. The other sports are: Track and field, boxing, track cycling, triathlon, gymnastics, diving, achery, canoeing and modern pentathlon.

3.400 athletes will compete in 155 disciplines, 194 champions will be crowned and 55,000 spectators are expected. The German TV stations ARD and ZDF will broadcast a total of 20 hours of the finals and there will be extensive live streams on the internet. “After the Olympic Games and major football events, we have never produced such a big event ourselves,” comments Thomas Fuhrmann, Head of ZDF’s Sports Main Editorial Department. Swimming will also get broadcasting time and the German Swimming Federation (DSV) wants to present itself with the top swimmers who, like Florian Wellbrock and Sarah Köhler, have won medals in Gwangju. The viewers will see the best German swimmers and exciting competitions.

Today’s morning heats featured the women’s and men’s 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke, the men’s 800m freestyle and the women’s 400m freestyle.

The women’s 400m free saw Sarah Köhler producing the fastest time in 4:13,88 ahead of Celine Rieder (4:19,22) and Josephine Tesch (4:20,41). Köhler’s personal best time stands at 4:03,96, she ist the current German record holder. Also Celine Rieder is able to swim a time around 4:15.

Fabian Schwingenschlögl claimed the top spot in the men’s 100m breaststroke hitting the wall in 1:00,48. Marco Koch checked in with a time of 1:00,90 for the second fastest time ahead of Max Pilger in 1:01,04. Koch and Pilger swam the 200m breaststroke at the World Championships, Koch finished 5th in 2:07,60, the second fastest time of his career.

Anna Elendt made it into tonight’s A final with the fastest time of 1:08,46, only 0,01 over her personal best time. Elendt participated in the 50m breaststroke final at the World Championships and finished 7th, a huge success for the 17-year-old. Jessica Steiger (1:09,55) and Kim Herkle (1:09,98) were the next fastest quallifiers. 16-year-old Kim Herkle set a new personal best time, she stayed under 1:10 for the first time.

Fastest into finals in the men’s 100m backstroke are Ole Braunschweig (55,11), Christian Diener (55,17) and Alexander Bauch (55,96).

Laura Riedemann put up the fastest time of the morning in the women’s 100m backstroke, taking the top seed in 1:00,57. Behind her, Nadine Laemmler (1:01,46) and Jenny Mensing (1:02,32) came in with the next fastest times. USA’s Kathleen Baker did not take part in the preliminaries although she was registered. Laura Riedemann made it to the 10th place in the overall ranking at the World Championships.

The fastest heat of the men’s 800m freestyle will be swum during the finals session. 2019 World Champion Florian Wellbrock in the 1500m freestyle will be in the mix as well as other fast Germans like Ruwen Straub and Henning Mühlleitner.