Winner | Florian Wellbrock - Germany

Logan Fontaine said you were unbeatable today. How was it out there? 

Conditions were tough. Normally, I don’t like the choppy water, but I tried to save a lot of energy in the first half of the race. The French guys, they pushed a lot, especially on the fifth lap. I stayed behind them and just focused on the last lap, where I wanted to push forward to finish first.

I’m a little bit excited about my result. I told you it's not my favourite conditions, so that makes me so happy with my first place today.

So was today a bit of a breakthrough for you? 

Yes, that’s right. It’s part of the game to deal with rough conditions and it is what it is and you just have to deal with it. I think the key today was just to save that little bit of extra energy in the first half. And, yeah, pushing forward at the end.

How was it for you with the big pack racing today? 

Sometimes, it’s a bit hard because I’m the swimmer with the lowest stroke rate; I think my average was 29 strokes per minute today. This is really low, especially when compared to Gregorio Paltrinieri or Logan (Fontaine). That makes it a bit harder for me to swim in these conditions. This is part of the game.

It seems like your racing form is coming back to the top since we saw you at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Do you feel this way?

I had a good rest after the Olympics. I rested for two-and-a-half months, then started with my new season in mid-October.  Of course, the Olympics wasn’t the event that I was working for and hoping for. But this is life. It’s not possible to stay on the top level every year, again and again. I’ve been at the top level since 2018. 2024 was my first year without an international title or something. So maybe I’m back; I don’t know. But I’m enjoying Egypt, so I’m really happy.

What's your upcoming training camp schedule looking like?

We’re going to Sierra Nevada in Spain for a high-altitude camp in mid-March. This will be my first training camp for the season. In January, my training group went to South Africa for another training camp but I decided to stay at home, to relax a little bit for my mind. I think this was so good.

Will we see you go for the overall men's title in the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup this year? 

I don’t know yet (if go for the OWS World Cup overall title). I’ll probably go to Setubal, Portugal, but I have no pressure. I’m not sure.

And, yes, of course I’ll be in Singapore for the World Aquatics Championships. Today, I qualified as the second German; my teammate Oliver Klemet had already qualified because of his medal at the Paris Olympics. I’m really looking forward to Singapore.

In Singapore, there's a bigger gap than usual in the schedule between open water and the races in the pool. Will we see you competing in both in Singapore?  

Yeah, that’s my goal: to compete in open water and pool competitions in Singapore. I’ll try and compete in the 5km and 10km, the relay, and maybe the Knockout Race. That’s why the gap between the open water races and in the pool is so important this year: we have a little bit more time between the competitions. You need the rest between to recover for the pool events.

You mentioned the 3km Knockout race. Do you think this will bring more athletes from the pool into open water? 

Yes, hopefully. Open water is still growing.  We have a lot of great athletes in open water. There are so many big names, and they can go really fast in the pool and the open water. This is so much fun. For me, it’s a really great sport, and I love it.

I think that’s the plan of World Aquatics, to bring more pool swimmers with good speed into open water. Maybe many pool swimmers don’t like the marathon distance, so maybe this will help bring them into the 1500m relay and the knockout sprint. Let’s see.

2nd Place | Logan Fontaine - France

Congrats on making the podium with your teammate Marc-Antoine Olivier. How was it out there? 

It was a good race. I knew I wasn’t in the best of my shape. I’ve only been training hard for one month. I took a long break after the Olympics. I wasn’t taking so many risks in the race; I was always looking to rest in the race to have a great push for the end of the race. In the end, it was a great battle with the French guys.

I saw no one wanted to close the gap and catch up to (Florian) Wellbrock. I took this as an advantage and fought for second place.

The French team really seemed to be racing aggressively from the front. Was this a team tactic? 

We are each very individual people. We each want to win, and we also want to be the first Frenchman. Sometimes, that pushes us up to the top.

Two French on the podium is nice: catching him (Wellbrock) today was impossible.

There are big winds and waves out there today. Do these conditions suit you? 

I really like it when the water is dodgy, so this was fun for me.

3rd Place and Sprint Winner | Marc-Antoine Olivier - France

Take us into today's race. How was it out there? 

It was a very hard race; we had a lot of top swimmers here. We swam with a big pack, so this made it difficult to swim like I wanted. On the fifth lap, I tried to push with away Sasha (Velly), but I finished third, so this was a nice result.

How did today's conditions suit you? 

Yeah, I like these conditions, but there were too many waves for me at this moment. It’s open water; we must update and adapt our swim to the conditions.