Family man from the "other planet": Wellbrock and his gold day - Tokyo

Triumphant Florian Wellbrock stretched both arms upwards and enjoyed gold in front of the impressive rainbow bridge of Tokyo gold after a power demonstration. On the winning podium in Odaiba Marine Park, the free-water champion with the medal around the neck in the hymn reviewed the way to the Olympic victory again: The shift of the summer games moved away, the training pulled through in the Corona pandemic special attention to health care - All this was worth it. 13 years after the double gold by Britta Steffen and 33 years after the Olympic Coup of Michael Groß Kreußbrock crowned his next German swimming Olympic champion.

"No one can take me anymore and that feels incredibly well," said the 23-year-old to his triumph. In the ten-kilometer race, the double-world champion of the start of impressive that happened and showed his extra class with strong sun and very warm water.

"For me personally, that's my summer fairy tale," said Wellbrock. When he recovered with a cool drink and a wet towel a little of almost two hours of extreme stress, he was proud and visibly exhausted to drive to the interview zone. From an oversized Golf Cart, he briefly showed the winner's fist, after getting out he was closed by his teammates in his arms.

"The family is awake when I'm awake here"

Unlike numerous other Olympic champions in the days of Tokyo, WELLBROCK renounced loud jubiling, dance inserts or similar extrovert emotional outbreaks. He is rather the quiet guy, calls itself as a family man. Even at the place of his biggest career success, Wellbrock talked about the internet with his parents and his fiance Sarah Köhler, who had fought together in his birthplace of Bremen in front of the TV.

"You know exactly, the family is awake when I'm awake here," said Wellbrock. "To know this restraint from the family, of course, is very good."

Even a misfortune does not take him from swimming

With the support of his family, Wellbrock has gone early his own way. He always wanted to swim. He did not lose his passion for the sport, after his 13-year-old sister Franziska died after a floating race. He himself was eight years old at that time.

Rademann: Florian Wellbrock. Getty Images

With 17 he walked away from home, moved to Magdeburg and pursued his floating dreams there. National coach Bernd Berkhahn shaped the long-distance specialist in the following years to a world-class athletes. The initial period in the new environment, where Wellbrock first lived at the boarding school and later in a WG, but was not always easy for the float.

Tattoo of Sido Quote

Wellbrock thought a lot about his life. Music helped him and gave him power. "Get your life constantly, you are dead longer than alive" - ​​the line from the song "Feel free" by Rapper Sido he carries as a tattoo on the left chest. The sentence reminds him of not taking everything so seriously.

From the hustle and bustle to his person as the largest medal hopping carrier of the German swimmers real estate merchant Wellbrock was never made from the concept. In Tokyo he always presented himself cool and also stuck an annoying fourth place in his first final. Over 800 meters he lacked only 35 hundredths of a bronze. The medal for 3rd place he then brought over 1500 meters in the freestyle race. Four days later he succeeded by the very big coup.

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"For every athlete, the Olympiciam is the highest of feelings," said Britta Steffen of the German Press Agency. "A medal is mega, but gold means: I've written history. You are never ex-Olympic champion, that's really nice that you wear this title as your own name, he belongs to you - forever!" Köhler, who had won over 1500 meters in Tokyo Bronze, was "unbelievably proud" on the fiancé, "and very impressed how he swums this race".

Wellbrock had after 1: 48: 33.7 hours with over 25 seconds ahead of the Hungary Kristof Rasovszky and the Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri struck. "Florian was on another planet today," said Paltrinieri full of respect for Wellbrock's performance.

"The Olympic Mail of Florian Wellbrock is a sign"

Wellbrock and Köhler brought all three medals for the German swimmers in Tokyo. Successful were the floats last in 2008 in Beijing, when Steffen twice won and record world champion Thomas Lurz won in freewater bronze. At that time there was a total of five medals for the DSV, as was this time. In the gentlemen, the association had to wait since the success of Albatros Michael Grand 1988 in Seoul on a swimming olympic vow. At that time, Uwe gained the Gold for the GDR.

"The Olympic Shirt by Florian Wellbrock is a sign," said great. "Young athlete see that Germany can be at the beginning at Olympia in swimming." Wellbrock set a sign immediately after starting at already 29.2 degrees water temperature in the early morning hours in the Bay of Tokyo and made pressure. "I'm around the first buoy in the first round, looked around and thought: guys, do not you want to choose a competition today?" Wellbrock said. Berkhahn, who had wanted a calm start of Wellbrock, said, "He could not swim slower practically." Although the competitors came up again in the meantime, but Wellbrock was simply unbeatable on this day. ## Faster, higher, stronger in the sign of the Fuji