Swimming-Germany’s Liebmann smashes 1500m world document | WSAU Information/Discuss 550 AM · 99.9 FM

PARIS, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Germany’s Johannes Liebmann smashed the world document for the boys’s 1500 metres on the European Aquatics Championships on Saturday, knocking virtually ​4 seconds off the earlier document in a ‌dominant show.

The 19-year-old set a brand new world-best mark of 14 minutes 26.79 seconds, eclipsing the earlier document set by American Bobby Finke on the Paris Olympics two years in the past by 3.88 seconds. He additionally turned ‌the ​first man to finish the space ⁠in beneath 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 advised 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 stated that he knew he was going to submit a very good time, however he had no thought how briskly ⁠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 ​additionally noticed ⁠one other world document fall as American Kate Douglass reclaimed the ladies’s 50 metres freestyle world document by registering a time of 23.49 seconds within the preliminaries on the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Irvine, California.

(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, enhancing ​by Pritha Sarkar)