An Olympian and gold medalist in open water events, Florian Wellbrock is a professional swimmer from Germany. He holds the 1500-meter short course freestyle world record. At the 2019 World Aquatics Championships, he took home gold in the 1500-meter freestyle and 10-kilometer open water swim. He earned the gold medal in the 10 kilometre open water swim and the bronze medal in the 1500 metre freestyle at the 2020 Summer Olympics. At the 2021 World Short Course Championships, he won the gold medal in the 1500-meter freestyle.

Wellbrock won a gold medal in the 1500 metre freestyle on November 4 at the 2021 European Short Course Swimming Championships, which were held at the Palace of Water Sports in Kazan, Russia. His time was 14:09.88. On November 7, Wellbrock finished fifth of a second behind the event’s gold champion, Gregorio Paltrinieri, to win the silver medal in the 800 metre freestyle in 7:27.99.

Wellbrock won a bronze medal as a member of the open water 4×1500 metre mixed relay team at the Abu Dhabi Aquatics Festival in December 2021, which was contested concurrently with the 2021 World Short Course Championships. Wellbrock won the gold medal in his individual event, the 10-kilometer open water swim, with a time of 1:48:09.4, finishing more than two seconds ahead of Italian silver medalist Domenico Acerenza. He qualified for the final in third place after swimming a 14:25.79 in the preliminaries of the 1500 metre freestyle as part of the World Championships. Wellbrock won the gold medal and set a new world record in the 1500-meter freestyle final with a time of 14:06.88. Wellbrock and American Anthony Ervin co-hosted a swimming clinic at the Etihad Arena, the site of the World Championships.