The Rio Olympics Champion, Ferry Weertman of Netherlands won his second major 10km title today at Lake Balaton, his ever so slight margin of victory just .1 of a second. The Olympic champion from Rio last August covered the race in 1:51.58.5 just barely beating Jordan Wilimovsky of the USA, the defending champion from Kazan 2015. The American swimmer and newly minted silver medallist navigated the final turn buoy in first position and successfully overtook France’s Marc-Antoine Olivier who would finish in third, .7 of a second behind the Dutch champion.
In the most prestigious open water swimming event that this event is, a total of 65 men dove from the starting platform into Lake Balaton. The 10km event is the only open water swimming event on the Olympic programme for men and women. Both the air and water temperatures had warmed compared to the conditions in the men’s 5km event on Saturday. The air temperature was 26 degrees at the start of the race and the water temperature rose to 23 degrees.
As expected, the waters of the placid lake would be churning with the presence of Olympic gold medallist Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands and the French swimmer Marc-Antoine Olivier who finished third in the race on Copacabana beach last August. Olivier won Saturday’s 5km event finishing ahead of 61 challengers. Also in the impressive field was Jordan Wilimovsky of the USA who won the 10km race in Kazan in 2015 and finished in 5th place in the Rio Olympic Games, 3.4 seconds behind the Dutch winner. Absent from the Balaton field is Spyridon Gianniotis of Greece who turned 37 years old in February.
As soon as the event started, within metres of their departure from the starting platform the men converged on the swimmer who was brave enough to take the lead. Austria’s David Brandl set the early pace with Jack Burnell of Great Britain swimming closely behind. By the 1500km mark Burnell had taken charge of the pace, covering that distance in 17:06.50 with the Austrian only .4 of a second behind. Italy’s Federico Vanelli was a distant 7.5 seconds behind, likely his effort to conserve energy for the final 1000m of the race.