EXCLUSIVE!!! Germany’s Antje Buschschulte: The Quiet Achiever with Something to Prove in Barcelona

By Stephen J. Thomas

SYDNEY, July 9. ANTJE Buschschulte has never been one to seek the limelight, but with the unpredictable Franziska van Almsick deciding to skip the World Championships, the 25-year-old German with a mean freestyle-dorsal combo may well take that step for her country in a couple of weeks.

The dual Olympian with a 400m free relay bronze from Atlanta and a rare German bronze in the 800m free relay from Sydney looked to have lost her finesse for freestyle since her brilliant 54.39 to win the German Olympic Trials in 2000, which made her the seventh all-time performer over the two-lap sprint. However in May, her freestyle spark came back at the WC trials, when she won in 55.21 (equal 9th globally this year) to beat van Almsick. (Interestingly, it was Franzi who tied her PR in winning the 100m at the Euros last year in a purple patch which included five gold medals including two world records. Buschschulte did not make the team that set the new world record for the 400m freestyle relay.)

Also at those 2000 Olympic Trials, Buschschulte clocked a world-leading 1:01.01 for the 100 back, but then just failed to make the final in Sydney a few months later. However she has continued to produce quality results in backstroke, having taken silver and bronze respectively in the 50m (28.53 – 4th best individual all-time) and 100m dorsal events at the last World Champs in Fukuoka. As well as the 100 free, Buschschulte will back-up in the 50-100-200 backstroke in Barcelona coming in with 2003 global rankings of 10th, 6th and 9th respectively.

Buschschulte, the German female swimmer of the year in 2000 and 2002, gave SwimInfo her thoughts as to what has contributed to the turnaround in freestyle and her performances in general this year.

"This year I made the change back to my old coach, Berd Henneberg in Magdeburg, who had coached me from 1997 until the Sydney Olympics. I only left him because I wanted to study biology and the course was not available here then, so I moved to Wuppertal near Düsseldorf. Also I wanted to train at high altitude, which had been good for me in the past, something that my coach at Wuppertal, Henning Lambertz, did not encourage.

I did a high altitude camp last winter before the European Short Course in Riesa and went well (she won the 50-100 backstroke double with a silver in the 200) and after passing my Vordiplom (a kind of half-time exam) I was offered the chance to study Neurobiology (a new course) back in Magdeburg and they support my swimming as well."

"As you can imagine I was very happy with my performance in the 100 free at the German Championships. It has been a long time since I have swum well in freestyle. I hope I can do much better in Barcelona, because I was still well off my my PB."

The German selection trials in May were run over five days, as is their tradition, without the inclusion of the full semifinal program competitors will experience in Barcelona. Assuming Buschschulte makes the final in her four individual events, she will have twelve individual races and at least a couple of relay swims over the eight days.

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