2024 WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 11th – February 18th (pool swimming)
- Doha, Qatar
- LCM (50m)
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UPDATED AS OF 10:30 AM EST FEBRUARY 6, 2024 (Scroll down for update)
The women’s 10 km open water event kicked off open water competition in Doha on Saturday. Olympic quota spots for each country were up for grabs.
Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands was behind Maria de Valdes of Spain for much of the race. A big push on the final lap from van Rouwendaal pushed her to finish just a tenth ahead of de Valdes. Van Rouwendaal finished in a final time of 1:57:26.80.
Portugal’s Angelica Andre was 3rd in a 1:57:28.20, just a second behind van Rouwendaal and de Valdes.
Unlike the 2023 World Championships, where the top three finishers earned individual spots for the 2024 Paris Olympics open water event, the race in Doha earned countries quota spots. The top 13 finishers not already qualified for Paris would earn a quota spot for their country. This means that countries do not have to give the spot to the swimmers that competed today. Instead, the National Olympic Committees can allocate these quota spots as they see fit.
The three swimmers already qualified, based on their top 3 finishes at 2023 Worlds, do not count towards the top 13 finishers. For example, if all three swimmers were in the top 13 today, the 14th, 15th, and 16th place swimmers from today would also earn a quota spot.
As a reminder, the top three finishers from the 2023 World Championships were Leonie Beck (Germany), Chelsea Gubecka (Australia), and Katie Grimes (USA). None of these swimmers finished in the top 13 today, so the 14th finisher from today does not earn a quota spot.
In addition, the host country (France) is also allowed a quota spot even if a swimmer did not place in the top 13 today. As France’s Caroline Laure Jouisse finished 7th and Oceane Cassignol finished 10th (see the *), that additional quota spot will not be necessary.
The final rule allows for each continent to have a swimmer compete if the continent did not already earn a quota spot.
Countries earning quota spots:
- Netherlands
- Spain
- Portugal
- Australia
- Brazil
- USA
- France*
- Italy
- Monaco
- France*
- Japan
- Hungary
- Spain
The men’s 10 km will race tomorrow, February 4th. Then, both the men’s and women’s 5 km will take place Wednesday and the team open water event will occur on Thursday.
UPDATE:
Pending confirmation, it looks like these 22 women will be competing in the open water 10 km in Paris.
The top three finishers from 2023 Worlds:
- Leonie Beck (Germany)
- Chelsea Gubecka (Australia)
- Katie Grimes (USA)
The top 15 finishers from 2024 Worlds:
- Sharon van Rouwendaal (Netherlands)
- Maria de Valdes (Spain)
- Angelica Andre (Portugal)
- Moesha Johnson (Australia)
- Ana Marcela Cunha (Brazil)
- Mariah Denigan (USA)
- Caroline Jouisse (France)
- Arianna Bridi (Italy)
- Lisa Pou (Monaco)
- Oceane Cassignol (France)
- Airi Ebina (Japan)
- Bettina Fabian (Hungary)
- Angela Martinez (Spain)
- Viviane Jungblut (Brazil)
- Jeannette Spiwoks (Germany)
Continental Quota:
- Africa: Amica de Jager (South Africa)
- Americas: Martha Sandoval (Mexico)
- Asia: Xin Xin (China)
- Europe: Leah Crisp (Great Britain)
- Oceania: Emma Finlin (Canada)*
*World Aquatics announced Tuesday that Canadian Finlin will take the Continental quota spot for Oceania, which had no competing athletes outside of the two Australians qualified.
I don’t know if anyone will see this, but bumping this to say that Swimming Canada just announced that Emma Finlin will get Oceania’s in allocated spot!
Yes, updated!
Thanks for the updated article! Looking forward to results and analysis for the men’s race.
Before the race started, Beck was very slow in readying herself and made everyone wait. As it was, she had to slip her jacket off very quickly to dive in on time.
Moesha Johnson 4th by 2 seconds! SA already announced she’s taking the second spot behind Gubecka. Could also contend for a 1500 spot but is a fair bit slower than Gough and Pallister.
She was in front for a while near the end. I thought she came 6th as they came in to the finish. But top 13 is all she needed
Barring health issues, Pallister probably has one spot locked down but I see the other one being open. On fastest times; Gough has it but hasn’t been anywhere near her best since 2021. May come down to whether Johnson goes all in for open water or not.
Wild finish
Looks like Grimes had a pretty nice lead at the halfway point and then dropped off. Is it possible she came to Doha to practice the 5k twice? That’s what she’ll be racing in Paris.
???? Paris is 10K
Ugh. I always get that backwards. Sorry.
She did have a good lead, and looked smooth. Not sure if she dropped off on purpose, or if something happened. I couldn’t tell. She is already qualified for Paris, so she didn’t have anything on the line. She is entered in the 5K in a few days.
This was a good race to watch. A few lead changes (Lisa Pou made an astute line move at about an hour to take the lead for quite a while), with lots of swimmers getting caught in a pack & others positioning themselves well when the last 500 meters of the race were on the horizon. Van Rouwendaal really showed her guts and experience to barely win at the finish. … Read more »
Ana Marcela said she was focusing on not taking risks here for example..
She looked like she could swim all day. She never really seemed to completely and aggressively turn on the jets to win like we’ve seen her do so many times the past.
She had $20,000 and a chance to medal on the line. Why would she possibly go all the way to Doha and not perform as best she could.
If Katie is swimming pool events here too no need to toast herself on an all out 10K effort!
Oceane Cassignol is a very thankful swimmer today. Lisa Pou placed 9th. Lisa Pou used to represent France, but announced that she would represent Monaco (where she’s trained for about a decade) after winning both the 5k & 10K at the French championships in Martinique in April 2023.
Loved how the commentators said mongolia 🤣
😂
Assuming GB don’t use their quota who is the next Europe girl in line to get the spot?
Also, from my understanding USA can use whoever they want in one of the quotas from the 10km. Does that mean there is a chance for Katie Ledecky?
Why would GB not use their quota?
In the past GB has used incredible difficult standards to go to the Olympics or World championships. Sometimes they use the top10 time from previous world championships to qualify to other world championships or the Olympics. It has been comum to use qualifying times much tougher than the World Aquatics A standart. Lets assume for a 1 minute that they will only let swimmers who do top10 times in the world go to the Olympics, and let’s assume they use this criteria for the Open water but with todays placing. I think it is not impossible for that to happen because the GB girl placed 17th (not even the equivalent to semi-final)…
The British Swimming social media seemed to say she was going, but with British Swimming you can never tell.
They’ve never been anywhere near as strict in open water. GB will take Crisp to Paris.
While the Olympic qualifying procedures allow for countries to use an open quota for whomever they want, the US Team selection procedure is more specific than that, stating that the swimmer who earns the quota is the swimmer who goes.
It’s Denigan – and since confirmed via socials