The Hotel de la Plage is a jewel in our Atlantic resort.

A few rooms only, balconies facing the sea.

The beach a stone's throw away.

Tanned people, pale, roasted.

Sun and clouds in constant battle.

High waves these days.

Brave ones who throw themselves into the surf.

Others approach her anxiously, scrutinized by lifeguards in red swimming trunks.

Six steps lead up from the beach promenade to the hotel.

A table with two chairs in front of the entrance.

Sea-view.

I bet there's no better place to sit with a café crème in the morning than here or in the evening with a cool glass of Tannat.

I've sat at this table quite a few times these days reading the latest in sports.

Favre not to Gladbach, but back to Nice.

Can you understand, keyword quality of life.

Wellbrock more fish than man

Also interesting: Our German super swimmer Florian Wellbrock currently appears to the competition more as a fish than as a person.

Equally fast in the pool as in open water.

At the World Championships in Budapest, I read that he won bronze over 1500 meters and silver over 800 meters in the pool.

In the open water, he first won gold with the relay and then solo over five kilometers, plus bronze over 10 kilometers.

I wouldn't be surprised if he then also won the 50, 100 and 1000 kilometers, provided these distances have now been included in the World Championship program, which I can't say for sure.

By Neptune, open water, I think with a view of the sea, open water, ten kilometers, how is that supposed to work?

That's from here to the horizon and back.

A normal person books a passage on a ship.

Wellbrock probably swims something like that before breakfast.

Instead of showers.

In any case, in Budapest he seems to be more in the water than on land.

It's getting late on the terrace of the Hotel de la Plage.

No one out at sea anymore.

No kite surfers, no surfers, not even the lifeguards who practice so diligently every day.

Then I see out there, very far out, but a swimmer, it seems to me, a swimmer halfway across the sea to the horizon.

I think that can only be Wellbrock, he's blurred somewhere in the open water off Budapest, and now he's drinking a little cool glass of Tannat right here on the terrace, and then he's swimming back to Hungary.

But disappointment.

A little later it becomes clear: It is only our hotel neighbor Gilles who is out there fighting with his new hobby horse, an electrically powered surfboard with wings, an e-foil.

No Wellbrock.

Too bad.

But who knows, maybe tomorrow.

I'll keep an eye on it.