Florian Wellbrock, happy about his silver medal at the World Championships, high-fived his Ukrainian training buddy Michailo Romantschuk.

In his first World Championship final in Budapest, Wellbrock showed in German record time that he is a real force to be reckoned with at these swimming World Championships.

"It was a great debut," said the 24-year-old.

"It has never gone so well over the 800 meters as it does today." Wellbrock set a national record time of 7:39.63 minutes over the 800 meters freestyle on Tuesday and brought the German Swimming Association their third medal at this World Championships.

"It's the third silver medal for the team," Wellbrock stated with satisfaction in the catacombs of the Duna Arena and added with a smile: "Maybe we can get another color out of the pool here, otherwise it'll be boring." Three podium places at the World Championships for the German pelvic team there was last in 2015 and thus still when freestyle ace Paul Biedermann was active.

Wellbrock: "I was annoyed at first"

Wellbrock was only beaten by the victorious Bobby Finke from the USA.

Bronze went to Romanchuk.

"At first I was a bit annoyed that I lost gold, even though the time was so fast," said Wellbrock.

"But still: I'm super happy with the German record."

In the final, Romanchuk took the lead about halfway through the race.

Wellbrock, Gregorio Paltrinieri from Italy and Finke formed the chasing trio.

In the final sprint, Finke was the strongest, as in his Olympic victory last summer, but Wellbrock also swam well.

Wellbrock has a special relationship with bronze winner Romantschuk.

The two are not only colleagues and competitors, but also friends.

After consultation with national coach Bernd Berkhahn, Wellbrock included the Ukrainian in his training group because of the war in his homeland.

"When two people from a training group swim to the podium, that speaks for itself," said Wellbrock.

"Of course I'm happy for him too."

Romantschuk had already said in an emotional interview in Budapest: "If the German team hadn't invited me, I wouldn't be here." At the award ceremony, he patted the Ukrainian coat of arms over his heart and cried.

After the US anthem for Finke, the three medal winners smiled for the cameras.

For Wellbrock, his silver medal was also something special because it was his first medal at the Olympic Games or World Championships on this course.

The exceptional swimmer, who trains with long-distance specialist Berkhahn in Magdeburg, surprisingly dropped out of the 800 meters at the last World Championships in South Korea.

At the Tokyo Olympics, he finished fourth.

A place on the podium was his "aspiration", Wellbrock had formulated as a goal.

He did that and, after gold over 1500 meters in the pool and ten kilometers in open water in 2019, was able to look forward to his third medal overall at the long track world championships.

For the open water Olympic champion, the medal should only be the beginning in Hungary.

"Now it's time to regenerate.

1500 meters is my best hobby horse,” said Wellbrock on the fourth day of competition in Budapest, where the Hungarian Kristof Milak improved his own world record in the 200 meter butterfly with a time of 1:50.34 minutes.

Wellbrock wants to defend his title and swim in the second half of the World Championships in Lupa Lake over five kilometers and with the relay for the podium.

The "other color" could not only be gold once.