Ferry Weertman won a ferocious battle for the men’s 10km open water swimming gold at the Rio Olympics yesterday, edging Spiros Gianniotis in a frantic photo finish to cap a Dutch open water double.
Weertman’s triumph by the narrowest of margins — both he and Gianniotis were credited with a time of 1hr 52min 59.8sec — followed teammate Sharon van Rousendaal’s victory in the women’s race off Copacabana beach on Monday.
But his win bore little resemblance to van Rouwendaal’s victory by a margin of more than 17 seconds. Weertman, the 24-year-old European champion, reached up to touch the timing board a nano-second ahead of Gianniotis, a former double world champion who has competed in all three editions since open water swimming was added to the Olympic programme in Beijing in 2008.
“Even after I touched the wall, I wasn’t sure I’d won,” Weertman said. “It took me a while. I called my friends back home and they said ‘You won, you won!’ and I’m like, ‘Oh really?’ I couldn’t believe it.
I still can’t believe it.”
Gianniotis, 36, said he couldn’t have wished for a better finale to his career, even if it ended in silver. “Every single metre of the training, every single day and hour, it’s just come down to the perfect moment,” he said. “That was my last race and I think that’s a really good way to go.”
Seconds behind them there was an equally tight call for bronze with France’s Marc-Antoine Olivier just beating China’s Zu Lijun — both being timed in 1:53:02.0sec. World champion Jordan Wilimovsky of the United States came home fifth, 1.2sec off the lead. Only five seconds separated the first 11 swimmers. Before the frenzy at the end, Australia’s Jarrod Poort made a courageous solo bid for the title, leading for one hour and 39 minutes before he was overhauled by the field. Poort had arrowed away from the field from the start, opening up a 58-second lead on his 24 rivals after the first of the four 2.5km laps, showing a relentless rhythm as his opponents jostled for position and he increased his advantage to over a minute and a quarter by half-way.
For a while, it seemed the 21-year-old’s daring might pay off but, almost inevitably, he began to tire on the third lap as the chase group rallied. Going into the fourth and final circuit of the course his lead had been trimmed to 40 seconds over a pack led by reigning champion Ous Mellouli of Tunisia — who was eventually swallowed up in the rush for home and finished 12th. Exhausted, Poort was unable to maintain the most efficient racing line, helping his pursuers reel him in.