Florian Wellbrock actually wanted to continue chasing titles and medals at the European Swimming Championships in Rome in August. But that is now uncertain. A corona infection threw the Olympic champion back hard.
Florian Wellbrock has started a competition against time again. That’s always the case with the best German swimmer of the present. But this time it’s not about best times in the water. This time it’s a battle with himself. Will his body be able to perform as well as it did four weeks before the European Championships in Rome on August 11th?
Review: Wellbrock made history at the World Championships in Budapest. The 24-year-old was the first German swimmer after Michael Groß to win five medals: world champion over 5 kilometers and with the mixed relay in open water, silver over 800 meters freestyle and bronze over 1500 meters freestyle and over 10 kilometers in open water.
“It was an experiment, no one knew if and how I would survive the five routes. It was very nice that I went home with five medals in the end,” Wellbrock told the German Press Agency.
Neither Magdeburg nor his trainer Bernd Berkhahn liked what came after: Corona. The virus infection had caught several German swimmers. “Luckily for me only after the World Cup,” reports the native of Bremen and continues: “If you hear how Corona has progressed with others, I probably had a more severe course with fever, sore throat and cough. That set me back a week and a half.”
Instead of training and taking part in the open water competition in Paris, Wellbrock stayed in bed. The recovery phase was good for him, but it came at the wrong time. “Including the World Cup and the preparation for it, I haven’t trained properly for six or seven weeks. You notice that very clearly in the water now,” says Wellbrock and, after a week and a half of training, exaggeratedly compares himself to a beginner: “I’m just learning to swim.”
His plans have thus been thrown overboard. He decided not to take part in a training camp in Mallorca in preparation for the European Championships in Rome. “I could have traveled to train there for three or four days. It’s better to sleep and train at home,” says the open water Olympic champion from Tokyo.
Wellbrock leaves open whether he even goes to the EM. Because the Magdeburger is always ambitious. “When I start, I want to win,” he says. Also at the continental championships. Coach Bernd Berkhahn had already declared after the World Championships that he didn’t even rule out five titles with five starts: “If you have perfect preparation and if you’re healthy.”
That will not happen in Rome now, because Wellbrock cannot face this mammoth program like at the World Cup under the given circumstances. “Now I have to see what is even possible. But I definitely rule out five starts like at the World Championships. If I start, we will certainly limit the starts, but that is still being discussed,” says Wellbrock.
The professional swimmer is by no means the only one who is struggling with the consequences of the corona infection even after the acute illness. Some even suffer from symptoms for more than four weeks afterwards. Experts then speak of long-Covid.
Around 1.8 million people in Germany are currently infected with the virus. Even if most infections are mild, doctors fear a flood of long-Covid patients. Because even people who develop hardly any or no Covid-19 symptoms at all can suffer from long-term consequences of a Sars-CoV-2 infection that last for weeks or even months.
Among the most frequently documented complaints in connection with Long-Covid are
But heart problems, kidney and metabolic disorders can also occur as a result of an infection.
In Germany, doctors refer to complaints that persist for more than four weeks after the acute corona infection as “long Covid”. Complaints that last longer than twelve weeks are referred to as “post-Covid”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines post-Covid as a condition characterized by symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction that affect daily life after undergoing Sars-CoV-2 infection. They usually appear three months after the onset of acute Covid-19 symptoms, last at least two months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis.
According to the Federal Center for Health Education (BzgA), anyone who fears suffering from long or post-Covid should first contact their family doctor. This often forms good networks together with resident specialists and can thus “guarantee interdisciplinary, outpatient care”.
In some regions there are already general practitioners and specialist Covid practices that can also be used as points of contact for patients. A list of post-Covid ambulances can be found here.
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