Ferry Weertman completed a marathon swimming double for Netherlands as Spiros Gianniotis suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the men’s race on Tuesday.
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Gianniotis led the way into the finishing funnel and, even though he might have crossed the finishing board first, he missed the finishing wall with his hand which gave Weertman time to touch it first.
“Gianniotis got in front and I knew he was going to win a medal, so I thought I have to get next to him, it’s the last 200 metres”, said Weertman, who added that his intensive training had paid off: “We have been practising a lot just to get the finishing touches, pun intended, and I had a ideal finish”. It is also the first time any country has swept the gold medals in the 10k, as his fellow teammate Sharon van Rouwendaal claimed gold in the women’s 10k on Monday.
“It made it a little bit tougher for me”. “I still can’t believe it”.
A couple of seconds behind in a chaotic rush for the finish, there was an equally tight call for the bronze medal with Frenchman Marc-Antoine Olivier just beating China’s Zu Lijun to the touch, with both men being timed at 1hr 53min 02.0 sec.
Meanwhile, defending Olympic champion Ousamma Mellouli of Tunisia came 12th.
The 10-kilometre race started in remarkable fashion, with Australia’s Jarrod Poort surging clear alone to open up a lead of one minute and 20 seconds.
There was more controversy in the marathon swimming though, a day after an incident in the women’s competition meant the runner up was disqualified.
Wilimovsky’s USA teammate Sean Ryan was disqualified along with Great Britain’s Jack Burnell and Kazakhstan’s Vitaliy Khudyakov.
“The whole thing was ridiculous, an absolute joke”. “I said to myself after Barcelona 2013: “If I qualify for the Olympics and swim the Olympics, that will be my last race”.
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“The first yellow card I got was coming down the straight back here – I was second, there was nobody either side of me, and the guy pulls out a yellow card”.
