Florian Wellbrock, Moesha Johnson topped World Aquatics Open Water Swimmers of the Year

Florian Wellbrock, Moesha Johnson topped World Aquatics Open Water Swimmers of the Year

Florian Wellbrock and Moesha Johnson have been named by World Aquatics as its Open Water Swimmers of the Year for 2025.

The selection for Wellbrock was a no brainer after his clear sweep of titles on the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. The German gained the 10-kilometer race, the 5km and the 3km knockout sprints. He additionally was a part of the German squad (Celine Rieder, Oliver Klemet, Isabel Gose) that gained the 4×1500 relay. He is barely the third man to win each the 5km and 10km races on the identical World Championships.

The 28-year-old native of Bremen gained Olympic gold in open water in Tokyo in 2021. He owns 17 profession World Championships medals, with 4 of them coming within the long-course pool and 10 (together with 9 golds) in open water.

Johnson was almost pretty much as good within the ladies’s competitors. The Australian gained the 5km and 10km races in Singapore, each instances edging out Italian Ginevra Taddeucci. She turned the primary Australian girl to win a world title within the longer race.

Johnson tied for the bronze medal within the 3km knockout sprints, and her Aussie group completed fifth within the 4×1500 relay after medaling at every of the final two editions of Worlds.

“Australia is such a proud swimming nation,” Johnson mentioned. “We’ve got this proud history that we talk about all the time. Kareena Lee’s bronze in Tokyo, that was the first time we were like, we can do this. I jumped over to open water after that, and the generation on the team now, we’ve come together as a passionate team and we want to put Australia on the map.”

The World titles have been the primary particular person Worlds gold medals for the 28-year-old from New South Wales, who gained silver on the Paris Olympics within the 10k. Johnson additionally gained Open Water World Cup races over 10 kilometers in Soma Bay, Egypt, and Setubal, Portugal, in addition to the 3km knockout dash race in Golfo Aranci, Italy.