PARIS, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Germany’s Johannes Liebmann smashed the world record for the men’s 1500 metres at the European Aquatics Championships on Saturday, knocking almost four seconds off the previous record in a dominant display.
The 19-year-old set a new world-best mark of 14 minutes 26.79 seconds, eclipsing the previous record set by American Bobby Finke at the Paris Olympics two years ago by 3.88 seconds. He also became the first man to complete the distance in under 14 minutes 30 seconds.
“I’m just amazed, the time is incredible. I didn’t think it was possible for me … I’m just speechless,” Liebmann told Olympics.com.
“The race was hard. I started fast, it was planned to just get rid of the others to swim my own race. Halfway through the race, I saw I was way ahead of the others, and I felt good … I guess in the last 200 or 300 metres, I saw the crowd standing up, and it just gave me another burst of power.”
The German teenager said that he knew he was going to post a good time, but he had no idea how fast he was going.
“When I saw the crowd standing, I knew probably a European record, maybe a world record, but I thought it was close, so I was a bit over-thinking it, and the last 100 metres were so hard, but then just seeing the 14:26 is incredible.”
Saturday also saw another world record fall as American Kate Douglass reclaimed the women’s 50 metres freestyle world record by registering a time of 23.49 seconds in the preliminaries at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Irvine, California.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
