Cancún is a great place to start focusing on the LA28 Olympic 10 km open water swim. The local organizers of the first stop in the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup created a scenic venue where a beautiful rainbow greeted the swimmers before the start.
With 65 men lined up at the floating pontoon, the race to LA28 began.
Cancún offered very bumpy seas, but the men’s race was quick from start to finish despite the choppy conditions.
Winner Florian Wellbrock (29, Germany, MSF bio here, World Aquatics bio here) was in control throughout the race. “It was very choppy, but these are good conditions for me. I saved my energy for the first 5 km because it was very hot. But it is a good start to my season after taking some time off [after the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.”
Dávid Betlehem (22, Hungary, MSF bio here, World Aquatics bio here) and Florian Wellbrock (29, Germany, MSF bio here, World Aquatics bio here) took it out fast in a lumpy Caribbean Sea with Mexican star Paulo Strehlke Delgado (20, Mexico, MSF bio here, World Aquatics bio here) trying to get on the feet of Wellbrock with his constant six-beat kick. But Wellbrock had already built up a 2-body lead by the 600m mark over the six-loop course.
However, with US$1,000 offered to the first swimmer to finish the first lap of six, Marc-Antoine Olivier (30, France, MSF bio here, World Aquatics bio here) put in a fast spurt at the end of the first 1.6 km lap to capture the prize money.
But by the end of the second lap in the 28.6° water, Leonardo Brandt de Macedo of Brazil had taken a slight lead with the Betlehem, Wellbrock, Strehlke, and Olivier high up in his wake.
On lap 3, Wellbrock had forged another 2-body lead over the lead group – that he held on to the finish. With everyone fighting the 0.5-meter surface chop created by onshore winds, Wellbrock was swimming like the Olympic champion he is. Everyone stopped at each feeding stop under the bright blue skies and 28.6°C (83.4°F) water. And post-race ice baths were at the ready.
The last lap saw Wellbrock held off the rest of the field.
The hard-packed white sand that laps upon the Cancún shores and steady onshore winds is a great preparation for the expected conditions of the Olympic 10 km open water swim to be held on Belmont Shore in Long Beach, California (on July 17th and 18th 2028). If the onshore winds blow similarly in Cancún, Long Beach could be a splitting image of Cancún – minus the very warm water temperatures.
Domenico Acerenza of Italy finished second and echoed all the sentiments of the entire men’s field, “It was a tough race.”
Men’s Finish Times
- Florian Wellbrock, Germany 1:53:55.80
- Domenico Acerenza, Italy 1:53:58.50
- David Betlehem, Hungary 1:53:58.70
- Marcello Guidi, Italy 1:53:59.80
- Dario Verani, Italy 1:54:02.80
- Fabio Dalu, Italy 1:54:05.30
- Victor Moreno, Brazil 1:54:05.40
- Andrea Filadelli, Italy 1:54:09.50
- Lucas Ezequiel Alba, Argentina 1:54:10.30
- Sacha Velly, France 1:54:10.40
- Paulo Strehlke Delgado, Mexico 1:54:10.70
- Christian Schreiber, Switzerland 1:54:32.60
- Martin Straka, Czech Republic 1:54:34.40
- Emile Mexmacque, France 1:54:37.80
- Dylan Gravley, USA 1:54:39.10
- Matheus Melecchi, Brazil 1:54:42.40
- Ivan Puskovitch, USA 1:55:00.40
- Marc-Antoine Olivier France 1:55:12.80
- Oliver Klemet, Germany 1:55:15.60
- Pasquale Giordano, Italy 1:55:22.20
- Joshua Brown, USA 1:55:22.50
- Diogo Cardoso, Portugal 1:55:31.60
- Taishin Minamide, Japan 1:55:33.10
- Bartosz Kapala, Poland 1:55:33.20
- Joaquin Moreno, Argentina 1:55:38.60
- Eduardo Lima Mustafa, Brazil 1:55:40.00
- Ivan Giovannoni, Italy 1:55:40.40
- Denis Borovka, Czech Republic 1:55:43.30
- Davide Marchello, Italy Bailey Armstrong, Australia 1:55:45.00
- Leonardo Brandt de Macedo, Brazil 1:55:48.10
- Arthur Aguilar, Brazil 1:56:19.70
- Riku Ezawa, Japan 1:56:27.80
- Roberto Valdes Ochoa, Mexico 1:56:28.70
- David Farinango, Ecuador 1:56:35.30
- Raul Alberto Briseno Gonzalez, Venezuela 1:57:16.60
- Luis Eduardo Corona Martinez, Mexico 1:57:42.60
- Yonatan Ahdut, Israel 1:57:59.80
- Francisco Amaral, Portugal 1:58:17.20
- Dogukan Ulac, Turkey 1:58:41.60
- Diego Obele Cisneros, Mexico 1:58:50.90
- Marco Antonio Melendez Hernandez, Mexico 1:58:51.30
- Matej Kozubek, Czech Republic 1:59:04.10
- Petr Moravek, Czech Republic 1:59:34.90
- Jacob Pishko, USA 1:59:38.20
- Rastislav Cacik, Slovakia 2:00:05.70
- Kaito Tsujimori, Japan 2:01:19.20
- Jose Barrios, Guatemala 2:02:25.00
- Fernando Betanzos, Mexico 2:04:04.80
- Johndry Segovia, Venezuela 2:04:14.80
- Jeison Rojas, Costa Rica 2:06:09.40
- Richard Urban, Slovakia 2:06:42.60
- Maximiliano Vega Cuevas, Mexico 2:06:44.00
- Jonatha Arredondo, Mexico 2:06:44.90
- Ramses Miranda Vidal, Mexico 2:06:46.30
- Emiliano Almanza Chavez, Mexico 2:06:47.90
- Alessio Ducourtil Ancona, Mexico 2:06:48.80
- Jose Maria Labayru Gomez, Uruguay 2:08:35.10
- Percy Escobar, Bolivia 2:11:29.40
- Santiago Martinez, Mexico DSQ
- Nolan Carrel, Switzerland DNF
- Ethan Parker, France DNF
- Ronaldo Eduardo Zambrano Sanchez, Venezuela DNF
- Esteban Faure, Monaco DNS
- Juan Pablo Garcia Santa Cruz, Mexico OTL
© 2026 Daily News of Open Water Swimming
“to educate, enthuse, and entertain all those who venture beyond the shoreline“
World Open Water Swimming Federation, an exclusively human-powered project