Florian Wellbrock and Gregorio Paltrinieri, Olympic Champions and two of the most high-profile open water swimmers in the world, blasted World Aquatics after the most recent Open Water World Cup stop in Portugal.
See the photos of their stories below, courtesy of screenshots from X user @swimupdates:
Wellbrock: Hey World Aquatics, the water may have looked fine, but did you notice how many women got sick after racing? Maybe it’s time to reconsider the event locations and pay closer attention to water quality.
Paltrinieri: Water quality is an issue, water temperature is an issue, nothing ever really change. 10+ athletes sick, some at the hospital.
According to Italian publication Fanpage, Ginevra Taddeucci also criticized the global aquatic governing body after a bad experience in Setúbal.
“A whole night vomiting, lying on the ground” the 2024 Olympic bronze medalist in the women’s 10k remarked. “Dear World Aquatics, we have been facing problems of poor water quality in competitions for years. Where is the protection for the athletes?”
The final stop of the 2026 Open Water World Cup took place June 20-21 not far from Lisbon. Seatemperature.info lists the water’s temperature at 19 C (66.2 F) on Saturday and 19.6 C (67.3) on Sunday. SwimSwam was unable to find specific data on water quality for that day.
The timed results, particularly those on the women’s side, reflect the notion that conditions were suboptimal. Aussie superstar Moesha Johnson won the 10k race in a time of 2:08:12.10. For comparison, she won the same course last year in 1:53:39.60, and she has not been slower than 1:59 at any other event this year. In a post-race interview with World Aquatics, she confirmed that conditions were poor in her opinion.
At the most recent World Aquatics open water event prior to the World Cup, the 2025 World Championships, concerns also arose among athletes. After his fourth of four golds in open water events, Wellbrock was given medical attention due to high water temperatures. At the 2024 Olympics in Paris, water quality in the Seine River was one of the biggest concern stories leading up to the games.
With respect to Wellbrock’s comment about wanting World Aquatics to reconsider event location, World Aquatics chose the exact same four courses in 2026 as they did for 2025: Ibiza (ES), Somabay (EG), Golfo Aranci (IT), and Setúbal (PT). The 2024 stop also had three of these four sites in its circuit, as did 2023. The 2027 Cup will bring at least one new course to the table. The Mexican government recently announced that coastal resort town Cancún will serve as the first stop.
