2025 World Championships: Men’s 10K Open Water Live Recap

2025 World Championships

• July 21 – August 3, 2025
• Singapore, Singapore
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• 10K Open Water Preview
• Men’s 10k Start Lists
• Livestream (Pay-To-Watch)

After a challenging 24-hour delay, the open water program at the Singapore World Championships finally gets underway today. Two postponements due to high levels of bacteria in the water, combined with temperatures reaching near the dangerous 31°C threshold—averaging about 30.5°C over the past two days—had cast doubt over the competition’s start.

However, World Aquatics has given the green light for today’s races following significant improvements in water quality. In a press release, officials confirmed: “The water quality results from the three samples taken along the competition course at 17:00 SGT on 15 July 2025 show a significant improvement, with levels of E. coli falling between the ranges of ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ according to World Aquatics and the World Health Organization (WHO) regulations. Regular water quality monitoring and testing continues throughout the competition period to ensure athlete safety, with the health and safety of all participants continuing to guide all competition-related decisions.”

The action begins with the men’s 10k, followed immediately by the women’s 10k, promising an action-packed four hours of competition. The course runs 1.67 kilometers through Palawan Beach, Sentosa, where swimmers will complete the rectangular loop six times to cover the full distance.

Today’s races mark just the beginning of a busy open water schedule this week. Friday will feature the men’s and women’s 5k races at 7:30am and 10:00am local time, respectively. Saturday brings the exciting debut of the 3k knockout sprint event, with both men’s and women’s races starting at 7:00am. The open water program concludes on Sunday with the mixed 4x1500m relay, also scheduled for a 7:00am start.

Follow along below for live updates from today’s men’s 10k.

Course Layout

The image below shows the course map released by World Aquatics.

Live Updates

The men’s 10k kicked off with defending Olympic champion Kristof Rasovszky of Hungary making his presence known from the very first stroke, shooting out to the lead along with compatriot David Betlehem, who swam to bronze in this event in Paris last August. Rasovzsky isn’t known for this aggressive early strategy, but Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock is, and he currently lurks in 5th.

At the 10-minute mark, Germany’s Wellbrock stole the lead from Rasovszky by about half a meter and held that lead until the end of the first lap. Rasovszky maintained 2nd with Betlehem right on his hip in 3rd, with about a second separating the top three swimmers. 27-year-old Wellbrock, who has 10 open water career World Championship medals including gold in this 10k at both the 2019 and 2023 Worlds, is looking for a rebound after falling to 8th at the Paris Olympics.

Halfway through the second loop, Wellbrock appeared to have some water in his goggles, so he turned over onto his back, calmly removed the water, and stayed within the lead pack in 2nd, but was overtaken by Rasovszky for the top slot.

Rasovszky, 28, maintained the lead for most of the remainder of the lap, but Wellbrock snatched it back on the final turn, with Betlehem holding 3rd. The biggest moves outside of the top three were made by Australian duo Nick Sloman and Kyle Lee, and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri, who like Wellbrock is looking for some redemption after a 9th place showing in Paris despite being the 2022 world champion. All three have moved themselves into the top pack, with Sloman sitting 4th and Lee at 8th, while Paltrinieri holds 6th.

Bern Berkhan-trained Wellbrock stamped his authority on the field through the third of six loops, holding the lead for the entirety of the lap, with Sloman, Lee, and Paltrinieri staying in the top eight.

The biggest change came from Rasovszky, who fell from 2nd to 6th, with Russian Denis Adeev, swimming under the Neutral Athletes “B” name due to the Russia and Ukraine conflict, powering from the back of the top pack to right behind Wellbrock. Wellbrock’s training partner and German teammate Oliver Klemet, who collected bronze in this race at the 2023 Worlds before earning silver in Paris, moved up into 3rd. Betlehem situated himself at 4th.

About halfway through loop four, the top two remained constant, with Rasovszky elevating back into the top 3 just ahead of Betlehem, with Klemet in 5th. France’s Marc-Antoine Olivier, who had been in the lead pack for the majority of the race but towards the back half of it, shot up into 6th, with Paltrinieri 7th and Sloman 8th.

Olivier, 29, was the silver medalist in last year’s Worlds in Doha behind Rasovszky, and also won silver in Gwangju 2019 and bronze in Budapest 2017. Olivier was the 5k champion back in Budapest 2017, but has yet to win a major 10k race. He was 7th in this 10k in Paris, 6th in Tokyo three years prior, and won bronze at the Rio Games in 2016.

As loop five progressed, 23-year-old Klemet made a move and pulled up right behind Wellbrock, with a German 1-2 punch beginning to break away from the field. The breakaway didn’t last long, as Paltrinieri quickly followed suit, making a move of his own and pulling up right next to Klemet.

Lee of Australia moved up into 4th, with Adeev 5th, Rasovszky 6th, Olivier 7th, and Sloman 8th.

More than halfway through the final loop, Wellbrock and Klemet maintained their 1-2 punch with Lee surpassing Paltrinieri for 3rd, and those four separated themselves from the remainder of the field, with the medals almost certain to come from three of these four competitors.

Behind the leading four, Adeev held 5th, Sloman leaped into 6th, Andrea Filadelli of Italy made his biggest move of the race thus far to rank 7th, and Luca Karl of Austria did the same in 8th, with Rasovszky and Betlehem, the Hungarian Olympic medalist duo, falling to the back of this pack and way out of medal contention.

With less than 400 meters to go, Paltrinieri lifted the pace and dropped Klemet and Lee, essentially guaranteeing himself a spot on the podium (with the order still to be determined), with Klemet and Lee deadlocked in a fight for bronze.

Wellbrock never relinquished his lead and was able to win by 3.7 seconds over Paltrinieri, never really appearing to be in danger despite Paltrinieri narrowly closing the gap over the final 200 meters. For Wellbrock, it represents his eighth world title, his 7th in the open water sector, and his 3rd in this distance, with Paltrinieri grabbing his second-ever medal in this distance following his 2022 world title.

The bronze medal battle was a photo finish, with Lee getting his hand on the touchpad just hundredths ahead of Klemet. Lee added his first-ever individual medal after a bronze in the team event in 2023 and gold in 2024.

The Olympic bronze medalist from Paris, Betlehem (2:01:13.80), settled for 9th today, over a minute behind Wellbrock’s (1:59:55.50) winning performance. Paris winner and reigning world champion Rasovszky couldn’t keep the pace over the final two laps and fell to 13th (2:03:05.50). France’s Olivier did not finish the race, opting out during the sixth and final lap, with no publicized reason at this time.

Speaking after the race, Wellbrock said, “I’m really happy. First of all, to be honest, I train in cold water, so today, it was like perfect conditions for me, and I’m really happy with my gold.”

On the warm water and the strategy when racing in different water temperatures, Wellbrock added, “You have to listen to your body in warm water, and it’s so important to listen to your rhythm and to your body. And yeah, to save some energy for the last step.”

On his silver medal performance, Paltrinieri stated, “It was like a 40-degree washing machine. But coming down that final stretch, you put that pedal down. I was trying to chase him down, just didn’t quite get there. Yeah, I knew Flo was gonna be towards the top. I tried to stay in the back for the first part of the race, then tried to close the gap. It was actually a beautiful race for me, so I’m really glad to be on the podium.”

Following the race, bronze medalist Kyle Lee was not interviewed by World Aquatics on the livestream.

Final Results

• GOLD: Florian Wellbrock (Germany) – 1:59:55.50
• SILVER: Gregorio Paltrinieri (Italy)- 1:59:59.20
• BRONZE: Kyle Lee (Australia)- 2:00:10.30
• 4th: Oliver Klemet (Germany) – 2:00:10.40
• 5th: Luca Karl (Austria) – 2:00:30.40
• 6th: Denis Adeev (Neutral Athletes “B”) – 2:00:35.80
• 7th: Andrea Filadelli (Italy) – 2:00:43.70
• 8th: Nick Sloman (Australia) – 2:01:01.90

Click here to view the results of all competitors.