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For Lukas Märtens, training alongside Florian Wellbrock every day provides competition and education that has been a key factor in his ascent on to the world stage. Lukas is part of Bernd Berkhahn’s group in Magdeburg along with Wellbrock, his wife Sarah and Isabel Gose.
He made a huge impact in 2022 across all events from 200m freestyle through to the 1500m and ended the year with three medals at the World and European Championships including 400m freestyle gold at Rome 2022. Lukas absorbs lessons on a daily basis from working with and observing Wellbrock, the Olympic open water champion.
He told FINA: “I think Florian is a little bit cooler than me during the race and he has a lot of tactics that I can learn a lot from. He swims so fast in training and I want to win against him but it’s not that easy, but sometimes it happens. It’s really good - it’s like a perfect group for all of us.”
He won bronze in the 400m freestyle at both the 2023 and 2024 World Championships.
At the 2024 German Championships in Berlin in April, he almost broke Paul Biedermann’s world record (3:40.07) from 2009 with 3:40.33 minutes over his favourite distance, the 400m freestyle.