These top five Germans will look to compete for wins against the international “Elite 11” competing across all the tour stops of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2023 circuit and many other top swimming talents in Berlin. 

Lukas Märtens

At his national team debut at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, Lukas Märtens was too excited and learned the hard way. But in the following season, Märtens made his big breakthrough with silver in the 400m freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest and the European Championship title in Rome. 

Self-confidence was high before this year’s World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, where the man from Magdeburg delivered once again: On the first day of the pool competitions, he won the lone medal for Germany with bronze over 400m freestyle. With the swim, Märtens also secured an early Olympic qualification time for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Just 21 years old, Märtens was the first German to reach the podium in this discipline at two consecutive World  Aquatics Championships. With his fifth place and a German record in the 800m freestyle and another fifth place in the 1500m freestyle, Märtens proves he has world-class pace and endurance as he figures to be a factor in the longer-distance races in the pool for years to come. 

Angelina Köhler

Luck is always part of sport, but Angelina Köhler didn’t have much of it for a long time. She missed Olympic qualification in 2021 due to a coronavirus infection.

After graduating from high school, Köhler moved from Hanover to Berlin in 2022. The new environment gave her wings.

“I don’t just train differently in Berlin. I also got a different perspective on swimming, that it’s also about fun and togetherness,” Köhler said.

This spring, she significantly improved upon Alexandra Wenk’s German record in the 100m butterfly for the first time, and at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka she was able to improve her own national record once again.

Her reward: fifth place in the world – her best World Championship result so far. Köhler loves her 
home pool in Berlin, so look for he to post more strong performances on the Swimming World Cup this year. 

Isabel Gose

The supremely talented Gose - who won her first German championship at 14, and later in her age-group racing years, six titles at European Junior Championships - has long since become the frontwoman of German swimming since moving to Magdeburg in the spring of 2020.

Sixth place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Gose followed this up last year by taking her first European Championship title as well as making three World Aquatics Championship finals.

In the 2023 season, the 21-year-old is now orienting herself towards the 1500m distance for the first time to possibly follow in her friend's footsteps, Olympic bronze medallist Sarah Wellbrock. As in the previous season, Gose once again reached three finals at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka. In Japan, Gose placed seventh in the 400m freestyle, improving on her own German Record time, fifth in the 800m freestyle, and sixth in the 1500m freestyle. 

Lucas Matzerath

At the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Matzerath just narrowly missed out on a medal, placing fifth in the 100m breaststroke. In the preliminaries, he improved on his own German Record with his 58.74 performance.

Since started swimming in Mönchengladbach at 11, Matzerath has been coached by Mark Jayasundara. 
Most recently, he followed the coach to Bochum, where he continues his studies in electrical engineering. Together they reached ninth place at the Tokyo Olympics, then two World Aquatics Championships finals in 2022 and their first international medal at the European Championships in Rome.

With his performance from Fukuoka, the 23-year-old has proven himself once again as one of the world’s best. It was the best German result in the 100m breaststroke since 1986, when Rolf Beab and Bert Göbel placed fourth and fifth.

Ole Braunschweig

2021 was a history-making year for Berlin's own Ole Braunschweig: with his younger brother Malte, the Braunschweig siblings became the first pair of brothers to compete for Germany at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the same year.

Malte swam into the Paralympic final, finishing in eighth place; swimming for the medals is something that Ole wants to achieve in Paris in 2024. He took further steps forward last year with his first World Aquatics Championships finals and the first European Championship medal in Rome. This year, Ole made the final again at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka in the 50m backstroke and in two relays. 

“This provides a boost of motivation and makes me want to do more,” says Braunschweig. 

The local hero and his friend Ramon Klenz have recently started showing impressions of their everyday training routine on YouTube on their “Berlin Hulks” channel.