It’s been a long time since Germany had a female swimmer with a legitimate opportunity to win a medal at the world championships. The country hasn’t earned an individual women’s medal in swimming at the world championships since Britta Steffen swept the sprint freestyles in 2009, but Franziska Hentke changed all that in a little more than two minutes last week.
Swimming at the German Open, where swimmers had one more opportunity to get themselves on the world championship team, Hentke dropped nearly two seconds off her best time in the 200 butterfly with a 2:05.26. That’s the fastest time in the world in 2015, though Australian Maddie Groves and Spain’s Mireia Belmonte have also dipped under 2:06 this year.
Hentke broke the German record by a full second, and now has the target on her back as she prepares to race against the world in Russia in three weeks. This won’t be her first trip to the world championships; she was ninth in the semifinals of the 200 fly in 2013, missing the final by one hundredth of a second.
The 26-year-old is not likely to let that misfortune happen again, though we’ll see if she can replicate her swim from the German Open against a formidable field that will not have any mercy on Hentke in her first world championship final.
Congratulations, Franziska Hentke on earning the Swimming World Performance of the Week!
Bernd Berkhahn