Florian Wellbrock, of Germany, made it a record three gold medals at one World titles in Open Water today off the coast in Sentosa, Singapore, as the first global champion of the newly introduced 3km open water knockout.

The women's title went to Japan's Ichika Kajimoto:

Kajimoto Makes History For Japan As First Women’s World 3km Knockout Champion

“It was important for me to stay calm when my swimming cap fell off. I kept a cool head and just continued with the race. I will try to break the Japan national record in the 400, 800 and 1500m.” - Ichika Kajimoto, Japan

State Of Swimming +Craig Lord

Brief explainer: In the 3km knockout event, swimmers start off with racing 1500m in the heats. The top 10 in each heat progress to the semi-finals, which takes place over a distance of 1000m. The top 10 swimmers from the semi-finals qualify for the 500m sprint, which will determine the winner. 

Wellbrock, who had already celebrated thumping victories in the 5km and 10km battles completed the final 500m sprint in 5:46.

David Betlehem, the Hungarian who claimed bronze in the marathon last year in Paris, and Marc-Antoine Olivier, who took bronze in the 5km yesterday, clocked 5:47.7 and 5:51.1 respectively to complete the podium.

• July 19 - Results in full at Omega

Wellbrock emerged from his latest starring role to tell the media that he was a little stunned to be celebrating a third gold in a week:

“My third gold was really unexpected, it was a completely new situation for me to race in the knockout race. I had no idea how it worked and what the best position to start the new heat was. It was so much fun, especially at the end with the 500m race. Just jump in and go all out so I found a way to enjoy the race today. To be honest, I’m still a little speechless and I have no words for it. When I arrived here and came here to Singapore. I just expected to get a top position in the 10km race because it’s the most important event at the Olympics. So my target was just to get a good week and giving all I have to give and I ended up with three golds, that’s amazing.”

Paying plaudits to coach Bernd Berkhahn and his training partners at the Magdeburg performance centre in Germany that produced the most Olympic distance freestyle medals in open water and pool of any program in the wold last year in Paris, Wellbrock said:

“We have such an amazing training group back home in Magdeburg in Germany and we have open water swimmers like Oliver (Klemet), me and pool swimmers like Lukas (Märtens) and the training level in Magdeburg is so tough and every day feels like competition and training. We are always racing head to head and in my mind it’s the best preparation for this competition you can have.”

On local conditions and the format of the 3km, he said: “With the sun, the water’s always going to be more choppy. The conditions here are tough as everybody knows it’s hot outside and the water temperature is crazy, close to 31 degrees. So the combination with this and hot water is so tough and a whole week of 10km, 5km, relay, knockout, it feels like a washing machine.”

“Of course, it’s really special because you need all the good positions for the new heat and every heat, you can feel the pace gets faster and I think I had a really good start. You need to think of a new tactic every time, take a look at who’s next to you and decide after the start from the beginning or save a little bit for the final sprint. You have to make a lot of decisions during the race.”