This past weekend, Alex Meyer of the United States and Rachele Bruni of Italy won the first leg of the FINA/HOSA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup in Argentina. Both were interviewed post race and the interviews were posted on FINA’s YouTube page.
Meyer commented a bit on the racing conditions and the back and forth nature of the race. He also cited a growing rivalry between him and Italy’s Simone Ruffini. He also praised the locals for coming out and providing a good crowd for the race:
As for Bruni, her interview was very brief, and bilingual! Listen ahead if you want to listen to an Argentinean man ask questions in Italian to a native speaker. He leads off with a similar question regarding the crowd supporting the swimmers as they raced:
The interview is short and Bruni expresses surprise that there were so many people out cheering, but also echos Meyer’s sentiment that it was really great to have that kind of support in an open water race. The interviewer then thanks her, perhaps relieved that he managed to get a good Italian question in.
The series will continue later this month in Abu Dhabi. That stop of the race was famously boycotted last year by the US swimmers. The swimmers were displeased that open water racing was returning to the United Arab Emirates after US swimmer Fran Crippen passed away at a race their in 2010.