The Associated Press is reporting that German World Record holder Paul Biedermann will sit out of the 2013 World Championships after battling a viral infection that has cost him two months of training. With the German World Championship Trials just two weeks away, he wouldn’t have enough time to get in shape for the event, and qualifying in the middle-distance freestyles would have been difficult.
Based on the new German qualification standards, he would have needed to swim 1:48.94 in the 200 free and a 3:49.55 in the 400 free to qualify, in addition to being in the top two in either race.
Biedermann is the World Record holder in both the 200 and 400 long course freestyles, and won three bronze medals at the last edition of this meet in 2011: one in the 200 free, one in the 400 free, and one as part of Germany’s 400 medley relay.
The German superstar has never quite returned to the level he achieved in 2009 in polyurethane suits, but he’s won medals at almost every big meet in which he’s swum since then, aside from the 2012 Olympics. In London, he was 5th in the 200 free.
Most recently, at the 2012 Short Course World Championships, he won a gold medal in the 400 free at the short course World Championships in Istanbul.