Florian Wellbrock won his second gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships in 2025 with a win Friday in the 5km.
Germany’s Florian Wellbrock was the class of the field in Friday morning’s 5km open water swimming race as the 27-year-old won his third career World title in the 5km, matching his wins from Budapest 2022 and Fukuoka 2023. This follows up his gold in Wednesday’s 10km as this is the third time a man has won both the 10km and 5km at the same World Aquatics Championships, following himself (2023) and fellow German Thomas Lurz from Rome 2009.
“I didn't expect (this result) because I felt really tired after the 10km and we had just like 24 hours to recover,” Wellbrock said. “But luckily, everybody was tired because everybody competed in the 10km before. With these conditions, it's tough because the human body isn't made for racing in 30 degrees water. So, I'm really happy with my gold.”
Wellbrock had a bit of a rocky 2024, entering the Doha World Championships and Paris Olympics as a heavy favorite in the pool and open water races, but he didn’t make any podiums in the Olympics. This year, he looks like his old self, and will also enter the pool swimming portion of the Championships in two weeks as the fastest man in the world in the 1500m freestyle.
Wellbrock, who trains alongside the women’s champion Moesha Johnson of Australia in Magdeburg, won the fourth gold medal for Bernd Berkhahn’s training group.
Wellbrock stayed with the pack on the first lap, and once he took the lead on the second of three laps, he never relinquished it, despite valiant efforts from his longtime rivals in Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri and France’s Marc-Antoine Olivier.
“David (Betlehem) started so fast, I didn’t expect that,” Wellbrock said. “I tried to follow, then in the second lap I pushed. But everybody was chasing me and tapping my feet. I didn’t feel really safe in the end because everyone was so fast behind me.
“That felt rough. On the last 100, Greg (Paltrinieri) tried to push. I tried to move faster, but it wasn’t possible. The end of this 100m was quite tough.”
With Paltrinieri’s silver, it matches his efforts from Budapest 2022 and Fukuoka 2023 as this is his 18th career medal at the World Aquatics Championships at age 30. Paltrinieri was nearly three full seconds off Wellbrock at the end, fighting tooth and nail in the German’s wake.
“It’s amazing,” Paltrinieri said. “It was a tough race, even tougher than the 10km race the other day because everyone was so close in terms of times. For me, it was a beautiful race. I was really tired today, my finger was hurt from the start and I lost the medical tape on my finger, so it was really challenging. I tried to do my best, I knew Florian was the favourite to win the race so I tried to stick close to him and tried to attack him but I wasn’t close enough. But it was a good race.”
Olivier, age 29, won his seventh career medal at the World Aquatics Championships with this bronze, four seconds behind Wellbrock. Olivier was the World champ back in Budapest 2017 and won silver in Doha last year.
“I'm very happy to win another medal during a world championship,” Olivier said. “Now I need to recuperate because tomorrow is the knockout, so I need to be focused to win the competition and take the necessary preparations.
“I wanted to maintain my position because I started very well, I was top five during the race. I tried to push and follow Florian in the last lap, but he was still very fast, it was very hard and I needed to decide on a new strategy.”
In a race that featured four men that previously won World titles in the 5km and 10km, three of them made the podium, with the fourth one, Hungary’s Kristof Rasovszky, finishing well off the pace outside the top ten in 14th.
Paltrinieri and Olivier were in a tense fight with those behind them as Italy’s Marcello Guidi finished fourth, nearly two seconds behind Olivier at the end. Denis Adeev finished fifth, ten seconds behind Wellbrock in a photo finish with Hungary’s David Betlehem.
“I was racing with two injuries, one on my elbow and another on my finger,” Paltrinieri said. “I was swimming with a broken finger and it hurt throughout. I lost the taping on my finger at the end of the first lap, so for me it was very hard to proceed because every lap I felt pain. But then I switched off my mind and I thought about only the race. My goal was more important than my finger.”
Betlehem led the race early and was setting the pace on the first two laps, skipping the early feeds to keep his rhythm. But the pace proved too much for the 21-year-old Olympic bronze medalist.
Australia’s Kyle Lee, Austria’s Luca Karl, Germany’s Oliver Klemet and Australia’s Thomas Raymond also factored into the lead pack, rounding out the top ten in the competitive race.
Race water temperature was 30.3 degrees Celsius as 85 swimmers from 50 different national federations competed in the event.
The 3km knockout sprints will be next on the calendar with the women’s race starting Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. local with the men’s race following at 10:00 a.m.