Thomas Lurz (born 28 November, 1979 in Würzburg) is a German swimmer who specializes is long-distance freestyle swimming, especially open water swimming. Lurz lives in Gerbrunn and swims for the SV Würzburg 05 sports club. He competed for Germany at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the 1500 m freestyle, where he missed the final. He was the World Champion in the 10 km open-water swimming event in 2004. In 2005, he won gold in the 5 km event but was beaten into the silver medal position by the United States' Chip Peterson in the 10 km event. He was jointly awarded the inaugural Open Water Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World magazine with Peterson. (via Wikipedia)