The first Olympic gold at the Paris Olympics slipped away from the American swimmer tonight! Lukas Martens from Germany claimed the men’s 400m freestyle finals, clocking in at 3:41:78. Right behind him, Australian Ejiah Winnington chased hard to snag the silver! Unfortunately for Team USA, Alex Shackell couldn’t break into the top three, with South Korea’s Kim Woomin taking the bronze. Shackel was the only American in the lineup, but he couldn’t quite make his mark this time.

Rather, the American swimmer claimed the rank of eighth at the end of the leaderboard. But that may not give a clear picture of the effort he put in today in the final. The top five names on the leaderboard of the event have attained their ranks on the scale of fractions of a second. But Lukas Martens held his nerve to the last ounce of distance today and kept the pack of chasers behind him. In fact, he didn’t repeat his past problems today that once had kept him away from the gold medal. 

In the last two World Swimming Championships, the 22-year-old German came so close to earning the gold medal. Yet, the final 50m stood to be his gray zone, where his pace dropped. But today, his transformation proved to be the difference, as he took 28.25 seconds to cross the final 50m. The nearest competitor, Elijah Winnington, could not match that, and the European champion found no barrier to clinching his gold-plated hardware. Ultimately, along with adding an episode to his personal collection with tonight’s achievement, Lukas broke the 36-year-old jinx in his country’s history. 

After Michael Gross and Uwe Dassler in 1988, the Magdeburg-born has become the third German swimmer to take Olympic gold home. In Tokyo, another German showstopper, Florian Wellbrock, put his hand on the Olympic gold, but the event was in open water, whereas Lukas Martens’ victory was in the pool. So the accomplishment tastes sweeter than ever. And yet, this is not the end of the event’s uniqueness tonight. 

Lukas Martens gold victory comes after a lot of chance factors 

After this morning’s result from the prelims, everyone was assured that not a single podium finisher from the Tokyo Olympics would feature in the 400m free final tonight. The defending champion, Ahmed Hafnaoui, bowed out of the Paris Olympics beforehand owing to an unnamed injury. The silver medalist Jack McLoughlin is spending his time now, away from the swimming pool, serving his retirement. On the other hand, Kieran Smith, the silver medal winner from the Tokyo Olympics, couldn’t make it to the final this time after facing 11th place finish in the prelims this morning. So, a victory in the final stood to be distinct from another perspective. In such a situation, Lukas Martens may have remembered his coach, who had once made him focus elsewhere. 

After the Fukuoka World Swimming Championship, Bernd Berkhahn suggested Lukas put his effort into other events, leaving the 1500m.  “if we now give more attention to it and he pushes the 1,500 meters away, out of training and out of his head, then everything can develop a little further,” added the judicious coach. Since then, the improvement has fallen on the swimmer’s route. Now, Lukas Martens is in history. Let’s hope he will extend the fairy run ahead.