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Florian Wellbrock in Doha

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Lee Jin-man/dpa

Florian Wellbrock was eliminated from the 800 meter freestyle at the World Swimming Championships in Qatar. The 26-year-old clocked 7:48.17 minutes on Tuesday and only finished in 10th place. Wellbrock experienced his third disappointment in his third race in Doha. As defending champion, he had already been unable to intervene in the fight for the medals twice in the open water. The best German swimmer in recent years is a long way from his desired Olympic form.

“Surprisingly slow,” Wellbrock said of his time, which was around 8.5 seconds slower than his personal best on the track. "I thought we were moving a little faster." Wellbrock, who didn't know at the time that he was being eliminated, added: "There might have been a little bit left in it."

At the World Championships in Japan last summer, Wellbrock completely surprisingly failed in the heats of the 800 and 1500 meter freestyle. In Doha, at the beginning of the competition, he had already lost his open water titles over the five and ten kilometers and clearly missed the podium in ninth and 29th place. On Saturday Wellbrock still has the 1500 meter freestyle.

Things went much better for Sven Schwarz than for him. The second German starter qualified for the final on Wednesday in 7:46.95 minutes. The fastest of the heats was the Italian Luca De Tullio in 7:46.52 minutes. “You always flirt with qualifying for the Olympics, i.e. fourth place,” said Schwarz. Anything upwards would be great, that would really be a dream for me that I would fulfill. But you can never tell, it was a very dense, narrow field.

In the morning session of the third day of the pool competitions at the Aspire Dome, Melvin Imoudu and Lucas Matzerath reached the evening semi-finals in the 100 meter breaststroke. The day after Angelina Köhler won the world championship title in the 100 meter butterfly, Imoudu came sixth in the heats in 26.91 seconds. Matzerath finished 13th in 27.40 seconds. Nic Fink from the USA swam the fastest time in 26.66. The 30-year-old won the gold medal over twice the distance on Monday.

ara/dpa