The second day of FINA Swimming World Cup in Berlin started well for the hosts. With Ole Braunschweig (23.78 seconds) and Marek Ulrich (23.89) in the 50m backstroke and Lucas Matzerath (26.87/seventh) in the 50m breaststroke, two sprinters reached the finals on Saturday (7:00 p.m. livestream on All Aquatics). In addition, the fastest race over 1500m freestyle with world record holder Florian Wellbrock, open water world champion Oliver Klemet and Sven Schwarz will take place in front of a sold-out crowd.
“I am happy that after the World Championships and the European Championships I can now also compete in the final heat at my home World Cup,” said Braunschweig. The European Championship bronze medalist from Berlin, like many of his German teammates, had to complete federal military training courses in September and thus could not achieve the full training workload. Therefore, it will certainly be difficult for him to make it onto the podium as he did last year. Fastest in the 50m backstroke was Dylan Carter (TTO) in 23.41 seconds, in the breaststroke Italy’s world champion Nicolo Martinenghi (26.44) led the field. “In the afternoon it should go a little faster if I angle the turn better”, Matzerath also gave himself combative, however.
As ninth Marek Ulrich (23,89) would have actually missed the final over 50m backstroke. In the swim-off for the first reserve place, the man from Leipzig then set a much faster time of 23.54, with which he would have easily advanced as fourth. “The preliminary heat was a bit too early for me, but we train to be fast even in the morning,” said Ulrich. And then moved into the final after all, because France’s Florent Manadou (third in 23.51) signed off for the afternoon.
>> All World Cup results at a glance
With bronze in the 400m freestyle Isabel Gose had delivered the best DSV result at the start on Friday, but on Saturday morning she was only able to finish tenth over half the distance in 1:57.13 minutes. Fastest was Madison Wilsson (AUS) in 1:55.01. “Without placing points for the final place unfortunately also my chances in the meeting ranking dwindle, nevertheless I attack tomorrow in the 800-meter final once again full,” Gose said.
The three best performances of each athlete during the three days will be included in the World Cup ranking, and 12,000 US dollars await the best in Berlin. In the men’s event, the new sprint star Carter, who had already won the 50m freestyle the day before, and South Africa’s Matthew Sates underlined his ambitions as the fastest in the 200m medley (1:56.00). Top performances were also shown by runner-up Maxime Grousset (FRA) over 100m freestyle (46.46 seconds) and world record holder Ruta Meilutyte (LTU) over 100m breaststroke (1:04.80).
