Märtens receives Biedermann congratulations after breaking men’s 400m freestyle world record in Stockholm

Lukas Märtens has received an accolade from fellow German Paul Biedermann after breaking his men’s 400m freestyle world record which dates back almost 16 years.

The 23-year-old Olympic champion clocked 3:39.96 on the opening day of this weekend’s Stockholm Open to take 0.11 off the mark Biedermann set at the Rome World Championships in July 2009.

Biedermann’s time of 3:40.07 was achieved wearing one of the drag-reducing polyurethane swimsuits that helped create a spate of world records during that era. World Aquatics banned them in January 2010, requiring swimsuits to be made only from textile materials.

Biedermann messaged Märtens on Instagram following his world record swim, saying: “Congratulations! What an incredible performance. I am so happy that the record stays in Saxony-Anhalt.”

Märtens, who won the Olympic men’s 400m freestyle title at last year’s Paris Games in 3:41.78, had a previous personal best time of 3:40.33, set at the 2024 German championships.

As in the Olympic final, Märtens went all out from the start in Stockholm, clocking 1:47.55 at the halfway turn – nearly 3.5sec under Biedermann’s world record pace.

Before Biedermann’s 2009 mark the world record stood to Australia’s Ian Thorpe, who swam 3:40.08 in 2002.

Märtens, who is trained by Bernd Berkhahn, has previously raced over the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle events, but he narrowed his focus to the two shorter distances last year – with spectacular results.

In Paris he became the first German man to win gold in the Olympic pool since 1988.

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics

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