Florian Wellbrock, Leonie Beck Named Swimming World’s Open Water Swimmers of the Year

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Florian Wellbrock, Leonie Beck Named Swimming World’s Open Water Swimmers of the Year

German swimmers Florian Wellbrock and Leonie Beck, who both swept the 5K and 10K open water races at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, were named Swimming World’s Open Water Swimmers of the Year.

FLORIAN WELLBROCK

Male Open Water Swimmer of the Year

No one has dominated men’s open water swimming in the last five years like Germany’s Florian Wellbrock. Since 2019, he’s been selected Swimming World’s male Open Water Swimmer of the Year three times (2019-21-23, with no award being presented in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

After sweeping the 5K and 10K at last summer’s World Championships in Fukuoka, Wellbrock—also an elite distance freestyler in the pool—now has 10 WC medals (seven gold, a silver and two bronze) to go along with his two Olympic medals (gold in the 10K and bronze in the 1500 at the 2020 Tokyo Games that were held in 2021). Of his 10 medals at Worlds, six are from open water competition (five gold and a bronze).

He was ecstatic after his double-gold performance last July—not only for himself, but also for the German team: “The feeling is amazing. It’s the fifth medal for the team, fourth gold for the team and second World Championships title for me. It’s amazing.”

His first win came in the 10K, where he led after each of the six laps of the course. On the final lap with one-third of the lap remaining, Wellbrock led by 4.6 seconds before pulling away to win in 1:50:40.3—18.7 seconds ahead of the field. “The conditions were really good. We started with flat water, and the temperature was OK for every athlete,” he said.

“At the end, the water was a little choppy, so I tried to save a little bit of energy during the race because I wanted to be prepared for the choppy water to fight a little bit with the waves. It worked really well, and my last lap was the fastest—it was the key to winning the gold medal.”

Two days later, Wellbrock led the entire race in the men’s 5K, finishing in 53 minutes, 58.0 seconds to defeat Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri (SW’s Open Water SOY last year) by 4.5 seconds.

“The conditions were much harder (in the 5K) than the 10K—the warm temperature, the water conditions and the air temperature. I tried to push directly after the start, and I think it was the key for the win.”

Wellbrock, who turned 26 in August, also won the Open Water Cup race in Egypt in May, finishing in 1:52.53.2 in a photo finish.

LEONIE BECK, GERMANY

Female Open Water Swimmer of the Year

Twenty-six-year-old Leonie Beck also swept both open water races at the World Championships in Fukuoka.

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Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

In the 10K, Beck trailed by as much as 17 seconds before closing in on the leaders with a strong finish. She took over the lead in the final lap and finished in 2:02:34.0 to earn the gold medal, one year after claiming silver in Budapest.

After the 10K, Beck said she was really grateful and happy with her race. “I thought I could manage the first half to save a bit of energy, but on the last half, I was fighting for my life!

“I tried to stay calm in the beginning, not to lose the pack, but not to swim too fast. I was always somewhere in the top-20, I guess, and then the last lap, I was fourth…but I thought, ‘Wow, it’s getting really hard,’ and I was exhausted.

“But I didn’t stop fighting. I fought so much. I never stopped. At one point, I caught them…and on the last 400 meters, I think I was a bit on the right. I didn’t recognize that I was passing them, but I didn’t look. I was just swimming and fighting to the end.”

In the 5K, Beck won in 59:31.17, again finishing ahead of Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands.

Earlier in the year in May at the first leg of FINA Open Water Tour in Egypt, Beck again made a late move and pulled ahead at the 8,000-meter check-in on the way to a time of 2:04:05.60. She followed that with another 10K triumph a few weeks later on the second leg of the meet in Golfo Aranci, Italy, finishing in 1:56:17.40.

With their respective 10K performances at Worlds, both Beck and Wellbrock qualified for the 2024 Olympics, where they will look to continue their momentum and German dominance in the open water races in Paris.

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