Anderson Repeats as 5km World Championship Title

The swimming competition at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan began today with the open water 5km.

American Hayley Anderson won the event at the 2013 World Championships and today she repeated that feat taking the gold in 5km (58:48.4).

In 2013 she won the event by the very narrow margin of two tenths of a second, today’s finish was not as close. Anderson took the event finishing 1.4 seconds over Kalliopi Arouzou of Greece (58:49.8).

Araouzou improved her placing from 2013 where she finished fourth nearly 10 seconds behind Anderson.

German Finnia Wunram collected the bronze in a time of 58:51.0. Wunram’s performance was impressive considering she finished 10th last year at the European Championships.

2014 European Championships silver medalist Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands led the race at the half way mark reaching 2.5 km three and a half seconds ahead of Anderson. van Rouwedaal fell off the pace finishing fourth, seven seconds behind the American and four seconds behind Wunram.

Jessica Walker of Australia (59:09.9) finished fifth followed by Ashley Twichell of the USA (59:10.0), Australian Melissa Gorman (59:12.7), Russian Anastasila Krapivina (59:12.7), Italian Arianna Bridi (59:12.9) and Erika Villaecija of Spain (59:15.0).