2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS – OPEN WATER SWIMMING
- June 18-July 3, 2022
- Lake Lupa, Budapest, Hungary
- Open Water Results
- Women’s 10K Results
- Men’s 10K Results
Open water worlds in Budapest, Hungary completed their third day of competition on Wednesday, June 29th. The athletes had a day off of competition yesterday after competing in the 5K open water event on Monday, June 27th.
The women’s 10K kicked off at 8 am. The event ended up being a very tight race as the top three finishers were all within 1.5 seconds of each other at the finish. After being 20th at the halfway points, Sharon Van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands moved up in the second half of the race to win the event in a 2:02:29.2. She finished only 0.5 seconds ahead of second place finisher Leonie Beck of Germany who finished in a 2:02:29.7. Third place finisher Ana Marcela de Cunha of Brazil was third in a 2:02:30.7.
This was Van Rouwendaal’s first medal of the competition so far. Beck earned her second medal after being a member of Germany’s winning 4×1500 m relay on the first day of competition. Cunha also earned her second medal after winning gold in the women’s 5K two days ago.
At last year’s 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Van Rouwendaal finished with a silver medal behind gold medalist Cunha. Notably, this is a completely different podium than the 2019 World Championships in the event.
Women’s 10K Race
Top 8 Finishers
- Sharon Van Rouwendaal (Netherlands): 2:02:29.2
- Leonie Beck (Germany): 2:02:29.7 (+0.5)
- Ana Marcela de Cunha (Brazil): 2:02:30.7 (+1.5)
- Aurelie Muller (France): 2:02:36.1 (+6.9)
- Katie Grimes (USA): 2:02:37.2 (+8.0)
- Anna Olasz (Hungary): 2:02:39.1 (+9.9)
- Angelica Ribiero Andre (Portugal): 2:02:39.3 (+10.1)
- Lea Boy (Germany): 2:02:40.5 (+11.3)
The men’s 10K open water kicked off at noon. Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri came out on top winning the event in a 1:50:56.8 just ahead of fellow countryman Domenico Acerenza who was second in a 1:50:58.2. Rounding out the podium was Germany’s Florian Wellbrock.
The three were at the front of the pack for most of the race. The Italian’s pulled away at the end to finish about 14 seconds ahead of Wellbrock.
This was the second medal for Acerenza who was on Italy’s silver medal winning 4×1500 meter relay. This was the third open water medal for Paltrinieri as he also was on the Italian relay and finished second in the men’s 5K two days ago. This also was the third open water medal for Wellbrock as he was on Germany’s winning 4×1500 m relay and he won gold in the men’s 5K as well.
Notably, Wellbrock also won two medals in the pool events as he finished with a silver in the 800 and bronze in the 1500 freestyles. Paltrinieri also captured a medal in the pool as he won the 1500 freestyle.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Wellbrock captured gold in the event and Paltrinieri finished with a bronze. Wellbrock won the event back at the 2019 World Championships as well.
Men’s 10K Race
Top 8 Finishers
- Gregorio Paltrinieri (Italy): 1:50:56.8
- Domenico Acerenza (Italy): 1:50:58.2 (+1.4)
- Florian Wellbrock (Germany): 1:51:11.2 (+14.4)
- Marc-Antoine Oliver (France): 1:51:11.5 (+14.7)
- David Betlehem (Hungary): 1:51:29.8 (+33.0)
- Mykhailo Romanchuk (Ukraine): 1:51:41.6 (+44.8)
- Niklas Frach (Germany): 1:51:45.8 (+49.0)
- Nicholas Sloman (Australia): 1:51:58.1 (+1:01.3)
Open Water Medal Table
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | |
| Germany | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Italy | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| Brazil | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Netherlands | 1 | 1 | ||
| Hungary | 1 | 1 | ||
| France | 1 | 1 | ||
| Ukraine | 1 | 1 |
Gregorio the Great!
Wellbrock medaled in all five of his events-pool x2 and open water x3. Impressive!
A 2+ hour race where first and third were separated by 1.5 seconds. Wow.
If Paltrenieri had been healthy at the Olympics the results would have been different then.
Imagine having a 4 event lineup where the 800m is your shortest event…
I think we’re spoiled for competitive distance racing right now. Think races lasting form 7.5 minutes to 2 hours there’s a lot of room for dominance (which if it’s Katie Ledecky is exciting in its own way), but between Paltrinieri, Romanchuk, Wellbrock, Finke and occasionally others like Acerenza it so often comes down to who has it on a given day. Paltrinieri and Finke represent the two extremes of strategy with everyone else in the middle. I’m a Paltrinieri fan but I’m also just glad to have such varied and often exciting races.
As much as I rooted for fellow American Bobby Finke last summer, I have to say that Paltrinieri is the current distance king. Fastest clean time in history in the 1500 a few days ago, gold in the 1500 in Rio, 3 x gold at WC in the 1500, 1 x gold in the 800 at WC, 10k gold in 2022. He had mono before the Tokyo games, reducing his practice intensity.
Bold race strategy in the 1500 was executed to perfection.
It’s the only way to beat Finke.
I also wonder if he purposely got an outside lane with his prelims swim so the 3 guys in the middle of the pool wouldn’t consider him a big threat when he took off.
Ceccon told Italian TV that Paltrinieri told him before the final that he wanted an outside lane.
Italy is very good in this event. Excited for Paris 2024