The German Swimming Federation (DSV) has changed the qualifiying process for the big events in 2018 which are: the European LC Championships in Glasgow (GBR) in August, the World SC Championships in Hangzhou (CHN) in December: In contrast to the 2017 qualifying procedure, the swimmers could reach the nomination standards during a qualilification period, which will last from January 22nd to April 29th, 2018. The qualifying procedure in 2017 only allowed the athletes to qualify for the LC World Championships and European SC World Championships at the German National Championships in June.
German swimmer Philip Heintz critized the 2017 qualifying procedure after the 2017 World Championships because he was forced to plan his training and taper around the German Nationals to make sure that he was fast enough to crack the high German nomination standards and for him the interval from German Nationals to World Championships was too short to train again on high altitude. He required more space for individual training plans.
The official nomination guideline 2018 says that the swimmers can choose between “internationally accepted” competitions and they must inform the German head coach Henning Lambertz until December 31st, 2017, via email about their choice, they can select a maximum of three swim meets. The “internationally accepted” competions are not described in detail.
The nominations times are the same in 2018 as in 2017, which means that swimmers must reach again in a final the time of the 8th fastest swimmer at the 2016 Olympic Games after semi finals. It was really difficult for the German top swimmers to stay under these times in 2017 to qualify for Budapest and only an exceptional regulation for swimmers born 1995 or later allowed many swimmers to join the 2017 World Championships team.
Only three swimmer were able to qualify directly in the open class category for the 2017 World Championships: Philip Heintz (200 IM), Franziska Hentke (200 butterfly) and Lisa Graf (200 m backstroke) and only Franziska Hentke won a medal, a silver in the 200 m butterfly. The World Championships team was completed by a few youngsters and relay swimmers and Marco Koch, the 2015 world champion in the 200 m breaststroke, got a wild card.
Perhaps it is fair to add that the German Olympic Sports Federation and the German ministry of the interior developed a full reform for all competitve sports in Germany – and the only scale for future payments are olympic successes. Germany’s head coach Lambertz set the nomination times according to the last Olympic Games in Rio and how fast the swimmers were in the semifinals to make it into the final. German swimmers didn’t win medals at the last two Olympic Games and only had a few participations in finals. So the DSV (German Swimming Federation) will set all the future standards high.
You see all times in the sheet – some standards for 2018 are faster than the current German national records, they are written in red.
Additional times for 800m freestyle men and 1500 m freestyle women (added in 2017 to the Olympic games schedule 2020)
1500 m freestyle women: open class – 16:20,98, born 1996 or later: 16:32,04
800 m freestyle men: open class – 7:50,97, born 1996 or later: 7:54,31
| Women | Nomination time – Prelims | Nomination time – Final | German National Record | |||
| Event | Born (year) | Open/born 1996 or later | Open/born 1996 or later | |||
| Fastest German in 2017 | ||||||
| 50Freestyle | Köhler, Angelina | 00 | 00:25,19 | 0:24,82/0:25,18 | 0:24,53/0:25,05 | 23,73 |
| 100Freestyle | Dietterle, Anna | 97 | 00:54,85 | 0:54,50/0:54,90 | 0:53,53/0:54,63 | 52,07 |
| 200Freestyle | Gose, Isabel | 02 | 01:58,86 | 1:57,74/1:58,68 | 1:56,63/1:58,09 | 1:55,68 |
| 400Freestyle | Köhler, Sarah | 94 | 04:06,72 | 4:04,36/4:10,57** | — | 4:05,84 |
| 800Freestyle | Köhler, Sarah | 94 | 08:25,32 | — | 8:25,55/8:38,56* | 8:19,53 |
| 100Breaststroke | Grimmberg, Vanessa | 93 | 01:07,80 | 1:07,32/1:07,58 | 1:06,73/1:07,24 | 1:07,01 |
| 200Breaststroke | Steiger, Jessica | 92 | 02:25,84 | 2:26,58/2:25,91 | 2:22,87/2:26,58 | 2:25,00 |
| 100Backstroke | Graf, Lisa | 92 | 01:00,37 | 1:00,89/1:00,61 | 0:59,35/1:00,31 | 0:59,77 |
| 200Backstroke | Graf, Lisa | 92 | 02:07,63 | 2:10,68/2:11,53 | 2:08,84/2:10,87 | 2:07,83 |
| 100Butterfly | Schmidtke, Aliena | 92 | 00:57,87 | 0:58,15/0:58,48 | 0:57,51/0:58,19 | 0:57,70 |
| 200Butterfly | Hentke, Franziska | 89 | 02:05,39 | 2:09,21/2:09,77 | 2:07,22/2:09,12 | 2:05,26 |
| 200 IM | Wolters, Maxine | 99 | 02:13,57 | 2:13,01/2:13,41 | 2:10,87/2:12,74 | 2:11,33 |
| 400 IM | Mrozinski, Julia | 00 | 04:43,82 | 4:36,54/4:43,06** | — | 4:36,10 |
| MEN | ||||||
| 50Freestyle | Wierling, Damian | 96 | 00:21,93 | 0:22,10/0:22,47 | 0:21,80/0:22,36 | 21,81 |
| 100Freestyle | Wierling, Damian | 96 | 00:48,68 | 0:48,58/0:48,93 | 0:48,23/0:48,69 | 48,24 |
| 200Freestyle | Zellmann, Poul | 95 | 01:47,14 | 1:47,15/1:47,73 | 1:46,23/1:47,19 | 1:42,00 |
| 400Freestyle | Zellmann, Poul | 89 | 03:47,49 | 3:45,43/3:48,15** | — | 3:40,07 |
| 1500Freestyle | Wellbrock, Florian | 97 | 15:01,34 | — | 14:55,40/15:12,79* | 14:50,36 |
| 100Breaststroke | vom Lehn, Christian | 92 | 59,47 | 1:00,26/1:00,35 | 0:59,45/1:00,05 | 0:59,15 |
| 200Breaststroke | Koch, Marco | 90 | 02:08,69 | 2:11,26/2:11,11 | 2:08,20/2:10,45 | 2:07,47 |
| 100Backstroke | Diener, Christian | 93 | 00:54,13 | 0:53,99/0:54,06 | 0:53,34/0:53,79 | 0:52,27 |
| 200Backstroke | Diener, Christian | 93 | 01:57,50 | 1:57,58/1:58,55 | 1:56,37/1:57,96 | 1:55,87 |
| 100Butterfly | Kusch, Marius | 91 | 00:51,83 | 0:52,08/0:52,29 | 0:51,73/0:52,03 | 0:51,19 |
| 200Butterfly | Thomasberger, David | 96 | 01:56,81 | 1:56,72/1:57,28 | 1:56,03/1:56,69 | 1:56,24 |
| 200 IM | Heintz, Philip | 91 | 01:55,76 | 1:59,77/2:00,22 | 1:58,85/1:59,62 | 1:57,48 |
| 400 IM | Heidtmann, Jacob | 94 | 04:15,37 | 4:13,55/4:17,90** | — | 4:12,08 |