By Retta Race on SwimSwam
2025 SWIM OPEN STOCKHOLM
- Saturday, April 12th – Tuesday, April 15th
- Stockholm, Sweden
- LCM (50m)
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The 2025 Swim Open Stockholm concluded tonight with Germany’s Lukas Märtens following up his astounding 400m freestyle World Record with another huge swim, this time in the 800m free.
23-year-old Märtens blasted a winning effort of 7:39.10 to beat the field by 2 seconds en route to registering a new lifetime best and lowering his own former national benchmark.
His teammate and 1500m freestyle victor here Florian Wellbrock snagged the silver medal in 7:41.10 while Oliver Klemet made it a German sweep with a time of 7:44.92 for bronze.
Entering this competition, Märtens’ career-swiftest performance checked in at the 7:39.48 produced for bronze at the 2023 World Championships.
Although he was just .38 ahead of that previous result, the man negative-split his race by a large amount this time around.
Märtens opened in 3:51.07 on the front half but sped his way to 3:48.03 on the back 400m, nearly 3 seconds faster.
Splits by 200:
- 1:53.42
- 1:57.65
- 1:55.91
- 1:52.12 (!!!!!)
Of note, China’s Zhang Lin also negatively split his race when setting the longstanding World Record of 7:32.12 in 2009 – 3:46.79/3:45.33 – including an other-worldly final 200m of 1:51.76.
Märtens bumped himself up to now rank as the 9th-best performer in history.
Top 10 Men’s LCM 800 Freestyle Performers All-Time
- Zhang Lin (CHN) – 7:32.12, 2009
- Ous Mellouli (TUN) – 7:35.27, 2009
- Ahmed Hafnaoui (TUN) – 7:37.00, 2023
- Sam Short (AUS) – 7:37.76, 2023
- Daniel Wiffen (IRL) – 7:38.19, 2024
- Sun Yang (CHN) – 7:38.57, 2011
- Grant Hackett (AUS) – 7:38.65, 2005
- Bobby Finke (USA) – 7:38.67, 2023
- Lukas Märtens (GER) – 7:39.10, 2025
- Ian Thorpe (AUS) – 7:39.16, 2001
He also now dethrones Irish Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen to rank #1 in the world this season and the only swimmer on the planet to have a sub-7:40 time thus far.
2024-2025 LCM Men 800 Free
MÄRTENS
7:39.10
| 2 | Florian WELLBROCK | GER | 7:41.10 | 04/15 |
| 3 | Daniel Wiffen | IRL | 7:41.52 | 04/13 |
| 4 | Oliver KLEMET | GER | 7:44.92 | 04/15 |
| 5 | Samuel Short | AUS | 7:45.02 | 03/08 |
| 6 | Sven Schwarz | GER | 7:46.01 | 04/15 |
| 7 | Kristóf RASOVSZKY | HUN | 7:47.04 | 04/13 |
| 8 | Kuzey Tuncelli | TUR | 7:47.46 | 03/07 |
| 9 | Dávid BETLEHEM | HUN | 7:48.02 | 04/13 |
| 10 | Alexander Stepanov | RUS | 7:49.36 | 04/15 |
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Lukas Märtens Negative Splits 7:39.10 800 Free Performance At Swim Open Stockholm