RIO 2016 OLYMPIC OPEN WATER SWIMMING
- August 15th-16th, 2016
- 9AM Local Time (8AM U.S. East Coast Time)
- 10Km Race
- Fort Copacabana Beach
- Results
Full race recap to follow.
French swimmer Aurélie Muller has been disqualified from the silver medal position in the women’s 10km open water swim on Monday morning at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. We presume there will be a protest, but for now that moves Brazilian swimmer Poliana Okimoto into bronze medal position and Italy’s Rachele Bruni into the silver medal position, both behind Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands.
In the final sprint of the closely-contested race, judges ruled that Muller obstructed Bruni toward the finish and disqualified her from the race. While a dominant van Rouwendaal won the race by 17 seconds, the next three finishers were closely bunched at the finish.
If the result holds, it would be Brazil’s first medal in swimming at these Olympics after they went o-for-everything in the pool.
Muller was the only swimmer disqualified, though 9 other swimmers were given yellow flags, or warnings, for misconduct at various points of the race:
| 5:00 | split 1 | 5 | CAN |
HORNER Stephanie
|
Yellow Flag |
| 16:00 | split 1 | 1 | MAS |
GAN Heidi
|
Yellow Flag |
| 23:00 | split 1 | 25 | POR |
NEVES Vania
|
Yellow Flag |
| 33:00 | split 2 | 3 | JPN |
KIDA Yumi
|
Yellow Flag |
| 37:00 | split 2 | 11 | POL |
ZACHOSZCZ Joanna
|
Yellow Flag |
| 49:00 | split 2 | 2 | ESP |
VILLAECIJA GARCIA Erika
|
Yellow Flag |
| 1:08:00 | split 3 | 12 | SLO |
PERSE Spela
|
Yellow Flag |
| split 4 | 22 | FRA |
MULLER Aurelie
|
Disqualified | |
| 1:42:00 | split 4 | 13 | HUN |
RISZTOV Eva
|
Yellow Flag |
| 1:47:00 | split 4 | 8 | RUS |
KRAPIVINA Anastasiia
|
Yellow Flag |
Having watched this, she should not have been DQ’d. They were both side by side but when they cam to the end, the float that holds up the finish line was obstructing her path and she had to slam into the swimmer beside her just to get in.
Being squeezed into the buoy is no big deal. No one has to give you room. Same as on the track or road running. Its your duty to go around. When Muller saw the potential for this to happen she could have tried to swap sides (easier said than done I know). You don’t climb on someone’s back holding them down so you can touch first. I doubt she’s a cheater by nature, just a desperate reaction in the heat of the moment. Still worthy of that DQ though. I thought it was the right decision
I agree that Muller would not be a cheat. I think that the pressure of the race just got to her at the end, and silver sounds better than bronze. What she forgot was that there were many camera’s at the line picking up the incident and didn’t realise a brazilian was fourth. Easy for Rio’s officials being strict in ruling to DQ.
It is extreme hilarity that FINA decided to act tough in the open water after ignoring numerous infractions in the pool.
I have seen worse and this sort of situation is to be expected at the Olympics. All sports at the Olympics are victimized by bad decisions. Good things happen to good people but very bad things also happen to good people. That decision is not likely to be reversed because the third place medal winner is from the host country and would loose it otherwise.
Open water swimming is so hard! In my experience, there is alot of contact. The finish is always brutal. There shouldn’t have been a DQ.
0-everything; apples and oranges, my friend . . . . not the same!
Upon several reviews of the finish, it is pretty clear to me that the decision to DQ was warranted. A few yards from the arrival, Muller veered towards to big white buoy while the Italian kept swimming straight. Muller then veered back to the right and literally jumped or sat on the Italian, in a move reminiscent of water polo.
It is a real shame because Muller was in a position to win, but she may have thought that going left would reduce the distance to the finish slightly and then when she was heading to the buoy clearly prevented her competitor from touching the board.
They DQ’d the wrong swimmer, i was so mad watching this. The silver medalist ran her into the buoy, i would have climbed over her too! Such a shame officials missed this! Definitely disqualified wrong girl
I thought that’s what it looked like too. From way back, the silver medalist was edging her to the left. But I’m a pool swimmer, I’m not sure.