Now that the German Short Course Nationals have concluded and Germany announced the squad of 31 that will be competing at the European Short Course Championships in Herning next month German National Team Coach Henning Lambertz has taken the opportunity to share his evaluation of the level of swimming in the country; his overall outlook was that it is average.
“It remains the case that our overall level is average. However, with positive trends upward,” Lambertz told Germany’s Swim Magazine.
For the Germans upward is good, but their starting point after the 2012 Olympics where they had five individual and three relay finalists in pool events and only one medalist at the 2013 FINA World Championships, was not very high to begin with.
Lambertz did tell the magazine that he was happy with the performance of some of the younger athletes, “First and foremost comes to mind Jacob Heidtmann a man, who completed the 1,500-meter excellent and well over 400 meters provides a very good performance offered,” said Lambertz.
The 19 year old Heidtmann finished second in the 1500 freestyle posting a time of 14:42.83 ranking him just outside of the world’s top ten.
With several of Germany’s best athletes not attending the competition they will be hard pressed for multiple medal results in Herning with their hopes being put squarely on veterans Marco Koch and Steffen Deibler.