Germany’s Swimmers Prepare for Olympic Trials (Part 1)

Most of the world’s swimming powers have just wrapped up their primary Olympic qualification meets in April, but in Germany, the first step of a two-step nomination process starts on May 5th and runs until May 8th. German swimmers had to swim qualification times at National Championships in prelims and in finals and afterwards they must confirm these standards at another selected meet: at the Mare Nostrum tour or the German Open.

The German Swimming Association (DSV) published the TOP 100 qualifiers list on April 21. (Germany’s TOP 100 swimmers per stroke, qualifiers for German National Championships)

The list below shows the top qualifiers and the times that they must swim at the German Nationals in prelims and finals to get a spot on the so-called “long list”. That means that they have a chance to make the German team for Rio – but they had to confirm their performance at the Mare Nostrum tour or the German Open in early July in Berlin. The target times at these meets are about 1,5 % slower than at German National Championships. If there will be more than two swimmers who could reach the nomination, the two fastest from German Nats will make the team for the Olympic Games.

Here are the fastest German swimmers at the moment (courtesy of DSV):

The fastest time the swimmers must reach is the one in the final at German Nats. Only a few swimmers could have managed to reach these times so far: Dorothea Brandt in the 100 m freestyle, Alexandra Wenk in the 100 m fly and 200 m IM, Franziska Hentke in the 200 m fly, Sarah Köhler in the 800 m freestyle, Marco Koch in the 200 m breaststroke and Philip Heintz in the 200 m IM. Germany’s other fast IM swimmer Jacob Heidtmann managed to get very close to the important target time: he finished in 4:16,39 in the 400 IM at the Mare Nostrum tour – only 0,02 seconds away.

Paul Biedermann and World Champion Marco Koch have a special status: Both won medals at the 2015 World Championships and to make the Rio team, they only must reach a first or second place at German Nationals.

The special German nomination procedure has proved its worth for Henning Lambertz, German national head coach since 2013:  “I noticed in earlier days that the times German swimmers reached at the season highlights, very often were much slower than at the trials before. Statistics said that 8 of 10 swimmers performed worse at the big international meets. So our nomination procedure is an attempt to keep the performances on a good level.” He added that this process also gives the coaches planning safety and it is now the third time the DSV chooses the swimmers with this nomination procedure – and obviously it is successful because after zero medals at the 2012 Olympic Games, Germany won three medals at the 2015 World Championships and the swimmers reached a lot of personal best times and start places in finals.

The sports director of the DSV (German swimming association), Lutz Buschkow will finally propose in consultation with chief coach Henning Lambertz swimmers to the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB) for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Source: Press release DSV