As reported by SwimSwam’s Jeff Grace:
American Jordan Wilimovsky took the men’s 10km open water swim qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Wilimovsky won the race in a time of 1:49:48.2 twelve seconds ahead of Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands. This a great swim for Wilimovsky considering that he finished 16th in the same event at the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships.
Wilimovsky automatically qualifies for next year’s Olympic Games as do the top ten swimmers in this race.
The FINA qualification procedure is as follows:
Step 1: The top 10 men and top 10 women at the 2015 World Championships in the 10K will earn an Olympic qualifying spot.
Each nation can only qualify a maximum of two swimmers in each gender
Step 2: Any nation that didn’t have anyone qualify through step 1 can send up to two men and two women to the 2016 Olympic Marathon Swimming Qualifier. The top 9 men and top 9 women at that race can also earn Olympic bids.
Each nation may only qualify up to one man and one woman for the Olympics this way
There are extra qualification procedures that ensure that each of the five continents has a representative, and that the host nation (in this case, Brazil) gets at least one representative in each race. You can read FINA’s full qualifying procedures here.
The Americans were one of two nations who had men qualify for Rio. Sean Ryan finished fourth in a time of 1:50.03.3. Ryan has represented the USA at several competitions in the past including the last four World Championships.
The second nation to qualify two men for the Olympics was Italy. Simone Ruffini finished seventh in a time of 1:50:09.1 while Federico Vanelli finished 10th in a time of 1:50:23.1.
Two of the 2012 Olympics participated in the event in Kazan. Canadian Richard Weinberger finished eighth in a time of 1:50:19.9, guaranteeing that he will have a chance at improving on his bronze medal position in London.
Olympic Champion Ous Mellouli of Tunisia had a surprising result finishing 23rd in a time of 1:50:50.2.
Defending world champion Spyridon Gianniotis of Greece finished third in a time of 1:50:00.7.
The winner of the men’s 5km, Chad Ho, finished 19th in a time of 1:50:47.9.
The top athletes included:
- Jordan Wilimovsky, USA – 1:49:48.2
- Ferry Weertman, NED – 1:50:00.3
- Spyridon Gianniotis, GRE – 1:50:00.7
- Sean Ryan, USA – 1:50:03.3
- Jack Burnell, GBR – 1:50:05.8
- Marc-Antoine Olivier, FRA – 1:50:06.4
- Simone Ruffini, ITA- 1:50:09.1
- Richard Weinberger, CAN – 1:50:19.9
- Allan Do Carmo, BRA – 1:50:23.1
- Federico Vanelli, ITA – 1:50:23.1
Full results can be found here.
Video courtesy of FINA.