World 400m freestyle record holder Lukas Märtens dropped a 3:41.76 at the German Swimming Championships in Berlin on Thursday night, the second-fastest time anywhere in the world this calendar year and a six-month-old benchmark statement before August's European Aquatics Championships in Paris.
The 24-year-old, who broke Paul Biedermann's German record and the world record en route to Olympic gold in Paris, was clear of the field by the 200-metre mark and went unchallenged to the wall. Christian Giefing took silver in 3:49.50, with the gap of nearly eight seconds underlining how decisively Märtens has separated himself from the chasing domestic pack.
Märtens' winning time sits behind only Zhang Zhanshuo's 3:41.55, posted at the China Open in late March, on the 2026 world list. It is also the eighth time in his career he has been below 3:42 — a benchmark only seven other men in history have ever crossed.
The performance arrives less than a week after Märtens won at the Bergen Swim Festival in Norway, where he opened his outdoor season with a 3:42.99 over the same distance. Bergen also saw him swim 7:41.16 over 800 freestyle and a tune-up 100m back, suggesting a full programme is in play across the Paris European Championships in August.
Märtens has spent the off-season in a centralised training base in Magdeburg under coach Bernd Berkhahn, the same group that produced Tokyo 1500m gold medallist Florian Wellbrock. The squad's headline targets for 2026 are the European Championships and the World Aquatics Short Course Championships in Bucharest in November.
Germany are expected to name a 40-strong roster for Paris within the next week — believed to be the federation's largest European squad in over a decade. Märtens, Wellbrock and rising 800/1500 standout Sven Schwarz are all confirmed inclusions, alongside breaststroke world champion Anna Elendt and sprint freestyler Lucas Matzerath.
The 400m freestyle field at Paris will be the most loaded since the Tokyo Olympics. Australia's Sam Short, Tunisia's Ahmed Hafnaoui, Romania's David Popovici, China's Zhang Zhanshuo and Italy's Marco De Tullio are all expected to enter. Märtens, who broke Popovici's European record over 100m freestyle at last year's German Championships, has not lost an in-season 400 freestyle in 26 months.
For the world record holder, Berlin was a checkpoint. Each of his major in-season appearances over the last 18 months has produced a sub-3:42 swim, and the consistency margin between his fastest and slowest performances continues to shrink. The next major test is the Mare Nostrum tour stop in Monaco in mid-June, the first time he is expected to face Hafnaoui and Short on the same start line in 2026.
