2024 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 2-8, 2024 (Open Water)
- Competition Results
The open water 4×1500 meter open water relay came down to the home stretch as Australia’s Kyle Lee and Italy’s Domenico Acerenza charged to the finish. Lee got the final touch finishing in a 1:03:28.00, just 0.20 seconds ahead of Italy.
The Australian relay consisted of Moesha Johnson, Chelsea Gubecka, Nicholas Sloman, and Lee. In July 2023 at the 2023 World Championships, these four combined for bronze in the open water relay. The Italian relay consisted of Giulia Gabbrielleschi, Arianna Bridi, Gregorio Paltrinieri, and Acerenza.
Neither Australia nor Italy led until the second half of the race when the two kept battling it out from there. Australia’s Sloman gave Australia the lead halfway through the third leg of the race. At the end of the third leg, Paltrinieri of Italy had given Italy the lead. Australia’s Lee was a second and a half ahead of Italy’s Acerenza halfway through the final leg and the two came down the home stretch stroke for stroke.
Notably, this was Paltrinieri’s second swim in Doha after dropping the 10km marathon late last week. Italy still earned two quota spots in the event for the 2024 Paris Olympics as Dario Verani finished 8th, just behind Acerenza.
Hungary’s Kristof Rasovszky had a huge anchor leg as he dove in 5th but ended up winning bronze. Rasovzsky won the men’s 10km open water race earlier this week. The Hungarian relay of Bettina Fabian, Mira Szimcsak, David Betlehem, and Rasovzsky swam to a final time of a 1:04:06.80.
Unlike the 10km marathon, both the 5km race and 4x1500m relay from today will not be competed in at the 2024 Paris Olympics, so quota spots were not up for grabs today.
Ok hear me out. USA needs to do some work with their open water crew. They really need to have swimmers specialize in actually training in the ocean/lakes. You can just tell that some of these swimmers only get open water swimming experience from these races. That’s why they can’t win medals in those relays.
Why is it mixed sex? Makes the whole thing a carnival.
Not to mention the issue of cooties transmission
probably because open water is a small and developing sport compared to pool swimming. several countries may not have enough competitors to field a full mens or womens relay, so it makes more sense to combine it. this is the only open water relay, so it is not comparable to pool swimming adding 2 mixed relays to the traditional 6
I loved watching this race and the finish was epic.
From above, in the chute at the end, it looked like Nemo of ITA was risking a DQ boxing Lee into the side at the end…but IYKYN having done it/been done to me, you can see when Lee caught Nemo underwater for the one stroke that allowed him to reach the smack-pad one stroke ahead.
No shade on either swimmer, as they say in OW swimming and in Days of Thunder, “rubbin’s racin'”.
Really wish the coverage of the OW this world champs was a bit more prominent. Unlike the pool swimming, there were individual stakes (Oly quotas) on the line, and all the big-dogs competed even if… Read more »
It was so exciting! Wish it was an olympic event.
Also Lee was not in front on the last leg until the end I’m pretty sure.
The top photo is not the top 2 from this race btw.
Paltrinieri swam the Men’s 5km a couple of days ago (finished 5th) so this relay was not his first swim in Doha.
Broadcast cut out for me with about 700m to go in the final lap so I missed the actual live feed finish……..nooooooo! I thought the Aussie women did a fabulous job to give Nick Sloman a solid lead over Paltrinieri at the 3rd swimmer changeover but Paltrinieri looked exceptional to erase that lead and take charge pretty quickly. I thought Paltrinieri was going to swim away from Sloman but to Nick’s credit he tucked into Greg’s draft and stayed there for the rest of the lap. This was all the incentive that Kyle Lee needed and he did… Read more »
Do not want to sound dense but what factors explain how a mixed 4x1500m open water ends up faster than what I imagine a 4x1500m pool swim relay would be? Is it currents?
Yes conditions (including currents) play a big factor on times swam. Consider how difficult it is to measure an accurate 1500m in the Openwater also, some courses will end up being shorter where others will be longer which also dramatically effect times swam. But all in all, it is the same course for everybody so just “swim it and win it” tends to be the mentality of an Openwater swimmer (they don’t let much faze them when it comes to distances).
looks like their pool personal bests come out to 1:03:04, so it’s actually pretty close. interesting observation!
It looks like the individual laps were about 1400-1450m, and the last leg made up the difference to a full 6k with the longer distance to finish the race into the chute to the smack-pad. Still, splits were QUICK, for example Moesha Johnson was barely off the lead-pack men on the first leg and split a 15:3-something…in the open sea with no walls that is moving
Moe’s swim was MASSIVE for the Aussies.
Moe’s split was about 15-36 (wrote it in the other thread) and she was not far behind the men in that lead-off.
Great race and wished there was a live commentary thread for it in SwimSwam (had to use the previous OW thread).
I too thought ITA may have been DQ’d in the final few seconds of the race.
Can’t say I’m a fan of theses dodgy tactics at the finish and I think it would be better for the sport if they altered the rules to clean it up.
I have now since seen the finish and had the result been different there certainly would have been grounds for a protest from the Aussie camp and the Italian team may well have been DQ’d. The fact that the offending team made no advantage to themselves I think the sensible thing to do was let it slide in this instance. Really not called for and Acerenza has just added motivation fuel to the Aussie team fire for their next encounter.
Maybe lanes to the finish?
Actually she split 15-32