{"id":609759,"date":"2025-04-12T09:23:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T16:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=609759"},"modified":"2025-04-14T05:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T12:26:13","slug":"flash-lukas-martens-takes-down-400-free-world-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/flash-lukas-martens-takes-down-400-free-world-record\/","title":{"rendered":"FLASH! Lukas M\u00e4rtens\u00a0Takes Down 400 Freestyle World Record; Lowers 2009 Super-Suited Standard (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"

FLASH! Lukas M\u00e4rtens Takes Down 400 Freestyle World Record; Lowers 2009 Super-Suited Standard<\/h4>\n

Lukas M\u00e4rtens\u00a0<\/b>has downed the 400 free world record in 3:39.96 at the Swim Open Stockholm<\/strong> to consign to history one of the global standards that had stood since the supersuited era of 2009.<\/p>\n

The Olympic champion took 0.11 from the previous WR of 3:40.07 set by fellow German Paul Biedermann<\/strong> at the 2009 World Championships<\/strong> at the peak of the shiny suit chaos.<\/p>\n

M\u00e4rtens splits:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Biedermann splits:<\/strong> 54.42\/1:51.02\/2:47.17\/3:47.07<\/p>\n

The effect of the supersuits is plain to see with Biedermann splitting 52.90 (27.13\/25.77) on the final 100 and M\u00e4rtens going 55.95 (28.38\/27.57) after reaching 300m 3.16 inside WR pace.<\/p>\n

Coming into the race, M\u00e4rtens’ PB stood at 3:40.33<\/a> from last year’s German Championships<\/strong> which had elevated him to fourth performer all-time behind Biedermann, Ian Thorpe<\/strong> (3:40.08) and Sun Yang<\/strong> (3:40.14).\u00a0There he had a 2.36 margin over the WR with 100 to go before falling shy.<\/p>\n

M\u00e4rtens – who was seven when Biedermann set the WR on 26 July 2009 – went on to win an historic Olympic title<\/a> last year in Paris where he clocked 3:41.78 ahead of Elijah Winnington<\/strong> (3:42.21) and Kim Woomin<\/strong> (3:42.50).<\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/video.wixstatic.com\/video\/746a76_b2ff54cce71d4a36bd4b2268d4fabc1e\/720p\/mp4\/file.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

With that he became the first German man to win a gold medal in the pool at the Olympics since 1988, when Michael Gross<\/strong>\u00a0of West Germany won the 200 fly and\u00a0Uwe Dassler<\/strong> of East Germany took the same 400 free. (Florian Wellbrock<\/strong>\u00a0won open water gold in Tokyo.)\u00a0Britta Steffen<\/strong> had been the last German gold medallist, man or woman, in the 50 and 100 free in 2008.<\/p>\n

While M\u00e4rtens – who is coached by Bernd Berkhahn<\/strong> in Magdeburg – understandably commanded the spotlight in Stockholm, he led home a German clean sweep of the podium ahead of Paris 10k silver medallist Oliver Klemet<\/strong> (3:43.40) and Wellbrock (3:45.29).<\/p>\n

Four individual men’s records now stand from the supersuit era: Cesar Cielo<\/strong> (50 free, 20.91), Biedermann (200 free, 1:42.00), Zhang Lin<\/strong> (800 free, 7:32.12) and Aaron Peirsol<\/strong> (200 back, 1:51.92). Liu Zige’s<\/strong> 2:01.81 200 fly is the sole record in women’s events.<\/p>\n

M\u00e4rtens told German media: “I felt good after the altitude training camp and knew I was in shape \u2013 but I really didn’t expect a time like that – it was surprising, I have to let that sink in first.”<\/p>\n

Biedermann was among the many athletes to congratulate him by posting to his Instagram Stories: “Congratulations! What an incredible achievement. I’m very happy that the record remains in Saxony-Anhalt!”<\/p>\n

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