The year is 2009. The date is August 1st. No Dane has ever won a world championship in a long course Olympic discipline. This is the reality for Lotte Friis as she stands behind the starting block in Rome before the race of her life.
Besides Lotte herself hoping for it, not many others dared to hope for a piece of Danish sports history. Lotte had only qualified for the final with the 5th best time in a “tough and difficult” way, according to her. Afterward, the Danish national coach, Paulus Wildeboer, gave Lotte a motivational talk. Now, it had to happen.
And it apparently helped. Because the next day, Lotte could see herself well within the first 300 metres out of the 800 metres. She and her coach, Paulus, had just planned to keep up with the two Brits, Joanne Jackson and Rebecca Adlington, and that's exactly what she did. But there was more in her plan, so after the first 300 metres, Lotte increased her pace and took the lead for the first time.
And she held onto that lead all the way to the 800 metres, although the excitement was high, especially towards the end. This was witnessed by the Danish commentator, Morten Hausborg, who commented on how amazing Lotte's performance was. She became the first Dane ever to achieve this.
Lotte Friis' Swimming Career - Briefly Told
At the age of 12, Lotte Friis participated in her first Danish swimming championship. At that time, Lotte was just an innocent young girl, and many of the older, more experienced girls probably didn't expect much from her. Nobody knew who Lotte was, but after that championship, they certainly did. At just 12 years old, she won three gold medals, becoming the Danish champion in three events, setting the stage for a glorious career.
Afterward, she spent a few years on the Danish junior national team, winning several Nordic junior titles before the 2004 Olympics. At least the qualification for it.
Lotte Friis was still very young, only 16 years old, and the 2004 Olympics already felt like a big deal. Half a year earlier, she had made her international breakthrough as a senior swimmer with a silver medal at the European Championships. But despite the good result, she missed out on qualifying for the Olympics. Fortunately, a much bigger Olympic experience awaited her just four years later, but at the moment, it was surely a bitter pill to swallow.
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The year after, in 2005, Lotte participated in her first Long Course World Championships. Up until then, Lotte had consistently moved closer to the world elite. But immediately after the World Championships, her first real setback came – a knee injury.
Lotte had had problems with this knee for several years, as one leg had always been about 1.5 cm longer than the other. And right after the World Championships, it went out of place, requiring surgery. Lotte underwent this surgery in December 2005, and then a lengthy rehabilitation process was necessary until Lotte was back at her highest training level at the beginning of 2007.
Big results were just around the corner.
In the summer of 2007, Lotte once again qualified for the Long Course World Championships, where she reached her first World Championship final – and also qualified for the upcoming Beijing Olympics a year later. A few months earlier, she had set Nordic records in the 400, 800, and 1500 freestyle on short course with times as fast as 4:03.67, 8:18.01, and 15:53.22. Her first (but certainly not her last) of such achievements.
As a result of these accomplishments, Lotte was named “Denmark's Olympic Hope” in January 2008 – an award given to someone expected to bring Olympic medals home to Denmark in the near future.
Then came a youth education that needed to be completed. Lotte finished this just a few months before heading to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And then the biggest goal of Lotte's life awaited her – a goal that had eluded her four years earlier, but not this time.
One of the highlights of the Olympics is the grand opening ceremony. Lotte's coach had actually advised her not to attend because it didn't align well with her swimming preparations, but she chose to go anyway – after all, such an experience doesn't come around every day, right?
Then came the days when the 800 free would be swum in the huge WaterCube Arena in Beijing. With no expectations of a medal from herself or anyone else, Lotte managed to qualify for the final with the third-best time, an impressive 8:21.74 minutes. Lotte had initially hoped for a time around 8:24.
But there was more to Lotte. In the final, she trailed the others right from the start, especially the third-place position that would earn her an Olympic bronze medal. She was still in fourth place with just 50 metres to go, more than 2 seconds behind third place at that point. However, an unbelievable sprint in the final moments allowed Lotte to touch the wall eight hundredths of a second ahead of fourth place, winning the first Danish Olympic swimming medal in 20 years.
Then came the World Championships, where Lotte was determined to reach the pinnacle of Danish and international long-distance swimming. And she did. Almost from the start, at least. First, there was the 1500m free, where she secured a silver medal. Her first-ever World Championship medal. Then came the legendary 800m free final, where Lotte fought for gold with two Brits until she finally touched the wall, half a second ahead of the other two. This made Lotte the first Danish long course world champion ever.
After that triumphant victory, Lotte suddenly had almost all the victories a swimmer could have. For some reason, despite her success, Lotte decided to participate in the popular TV show “Vild Med Dans” (Dancing with the Stars), which many criticized from the outside – she was finally at her peak, yet the focus was shifted away from swimming.
But Lotte Friis emerged stronger from “Vild Med Dans.” She demonstrated this at the 2010 European Championships, where she won the 800m and 1500m freestyle events, and at the subsequent Long Course World Championships in 2011, where she was the defending world champion in the 800m free. Unfortunately, she didn't retain that title, finishing in second place. However, she moved up a notch in the 1500m free, becoming world champion for the first time in that event.
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Then came the Olympics again. With such successful years, Lotte had won medals at every international championship since her Olympic bronze medals in the 800m and 1500m freestyle, including the 800m free she had won bronze in at the Beijing Olympics four years earlier. There were high expectations for Lotte at the London 2012 Olympics. The same went for her swimming colleague and friend, Jeanette Ottesen. In fact, the two swimmers were Denmark's two biggest and most secure medal prospects, according to several bookmakers.
It started quite well for Lotte. In the 800m freestyle preliminaries, she was only eight hundredths of a second behind the home favourite, Rebecca Adlington. She finished a full two seconds ahead of third place, 15-year-old Katie Ledecky from the USA, whom no one had heard of before the Olympics. It looked like a guaranteed medal. Gold seemed likely to go to either Lotte or Rebecca. As Lotte describes it:
“The distance I had won a bronze medal in at the Beijing Olympics four years earlier, the final I had thought about, dreamed of, lived for, and trained for, that had been my whole life for several years.”
And the race began. Unfortunately, she got off to a bad start, as Lotte herself says. The young American, who no one had heard of before the Olympics, started the race at a blistering pace and had gold in mind, making Lotte feel she had to keep up. It backfired by the 600 m mark, where it just wasn't possible any more. Everyone was passing her by now. When the 800 metres were swum, the scoreboard showed a number five next to Lotte Friis – 9 seconds behind gold and 3 seconds from bronze. It was a tearful Lotte who first met her coach of the last 4 years, Paulus Wildeboer, then Rikke Møller Pedersen, and finally her family, who had watched the race from the stands.
Now Lotte was puzzled: “Should I stop swimming, start an education, and live a normal life? Or should I continue my swimming career elsewhere?”
The result was the latter. Lotte uprooted her comfortable life in Denmark and moved to Nice to train daily with strong French swimmers like Camille Muffat and Charlotte Bonnet. Here, Lotte trained for the Long Course World Championships in Barcelona in 2013, where she once again won a set of medals – two silver medals, this time behind the rising star Katie Ledecky. Lotte was even under the world record on the longest distance, showing that she was back and swimming faster than ever.
On home turf at the Short Course European Championships at the end of 2013, Lotte also demonstrated to the Danes that she could still bring medals home to Denmark. She won two silver medals, even though she didn't get the gold she had hoped for.
Then came the Long Course World Championships in 2015. At that time, Lotte had already been swimming for 1.5 years in the USA in Baltimore under the legendary coach Bob Bowman, who was behind Michael Phelps' legendary many Olympic medals. Therefore, Lotte entered this World Championships with high hopes – now there was only one year left until her final Olympics.
Unfortunately, this World Championships marked the beginning of a series of disappointments. Lotte came home without a single medal, which hadn't happened since she won her first in 2009. She finished fourth and fifth in the two long-distance freestyle events.
Now all focus was on the Rio 2016 Olympics a year later. She needed to overcome the massive disappointment from four years earlier, although expectations for medals from the Danes and the media weren't quite as high this time. Unfortunately, the 2016 Olympics weren't much better for Lotte either. She finished in 7th place in her favourite event, the 800m freestyle.
But this time, when the press met her after the final, it was a completely different Lotte. She was easygoing:
“I made it to the final and didn't finish eighth, which is the eternal joke on our team,” she said, referring to her colleagues Jeanette Ottesen and Rikke Møller Pedersen, who both occupied last place in their respective finals.
That marked the end of Lotte's Olympic career, which had started eight years earlier with the first Olympic medal for a Danish swimmer in 20 years.
A few months later, in April 2017, Lotte Friis announced that she had finally retired from competitive swimming. There was no more fuel in the tank.
With her swimming career over, a new everyday life outside the pool awaited. Lotte now lives with her fiancé in Aarhus, where she works in radio at P4.
As the icing on the cake, in January 2019, Lotte Friis became only the second swimmer in history to be inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame at the major sports gala. This award is reserved for the most significant and successful athletes in Denmark – and among them is Lotte.
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Bio – Lotte Friis
- Born on February 9, 1988
- Height: 183 cm
- Grew up in Blovstrød
- Swimming career started at SigmaSwim
- Graduated from Marie Kruse's Gymnasium in 2008
- Primary disciplines: 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle swimming
- Major achievements: Olympic bronze in 2008 and World Champion in 800m freestyle in 2009 and 1500m freestyle in 2011
- Has won 23 international medals at the European Championships, World Championships, and the Olympics
- Learn to swim as efficiently as Lotte
- Swimming is about efficiency, not necessarily looking the best. Lotte Friis is a visible example of this and has been for many years. With her crawl technique, she managed to set world records, win several world championships, and even an Olympic medal
To become as proficient in crawl swimming as Lotte:
Swimming emphasizes efficiency rather than aesthetics. Lotte Friis is a visible testament to this principle and has proven it over several years. Lotte has excelled in the crawl stroke, breaking world records, winning numerous world championships, and even earning an Olympic medal.
All of these achievements were in the two long-distance crawl events: 800m freestyle and 1500m freestyle. In these races, efficiency is paramount to endure such long distances.
Lotte achieved this through several key techniques:
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High Elbow Position: Maintaining a high elbow position underwater helps with a more efficient pull and reduces resistance
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Efficient Arm Recovery: Focus on a smooth and efficient arm recovery over the water to minimize drag
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Natural and Consistent Motion: Develop a natural and steady swimming rhythm that conserves energy and maintains momentum
Lotte shares her top 5 tips for improving your crawl swimming in the video below. She also discusses her preferred crawl stroke exercises and explains why she excels in long-distance crawl swimming.
If you're interested in learning more about other accomplished swimmers like Jeanette Ottesen and Rikke Møller Pedersen, Watery has partnered with them as well. You can find comprehensive reports on their careers, along with unique video content and swimming tips on the Watery platform.
Feel free to explore more about Rikke Møller Pedersen and Jeanette Ottesen
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Thank you for reading all the way to the end. We hope you found this information exciting and learned a thing or two about Denmark's best long-distance swimmer ever.