Swimming World Magazine names its 2023 Open Water Swimmers of the Year: German teammates Florian Wellbrock and Leonie Beck.

What a year Wellbrock had.

At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, the 25-year-old German kicked off with a gold medal performance in the 10 km race in 1 hour 50 minutes 40.3 seconds and then won the 5 km race in 53:58 two days later. Seven days later in the pool, he placed an uncharacteristic 9th in the 800m freestyle (7:45.87) and 20th in the 1500m freestyle (15:10.33).

Wellbrock earlier won two gold medals at the World Aquatics World Cup race in Egypt in May in both the 10 km (1:52:53.20) and the 4x1500m mixed relay. A month before in April, he swam a 3:49.30 in the 400m freestyle, a 7:42.99 in the 800m freestyle, and a 14:34.89 in the 1500m freestyle at the Berlin Swim Open.

In early April, he swam the 100m freestyle (52.27), 800m freestyle (7:48.06) and the 1500m freestyle (14:40.18) at an international meet in Germany that kicked off a season where he was clearly one of the world’s fastest freestylers in both the pool and open water.

With outstanding stroke mechanics, strength, and ankle flexibility, Wellbrock enters in final year of the Olympic quadrennial as the 2024 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim gold medal favorite with an additional expectation and potential to pull off a Mellouli Double.

© 2023 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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