Courtesy of NBCOlympics.com on Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro.
The shape of the pace and the time differential from the lead swimmer to the last swimmer at the 5 km mark is only 14 seconds so this indicates that the first half of the women’s Olympic 10K Marathon Swim is slow…and the second half will be blistering fast.
The women are on the last 2.5 km lap now with Sharon Van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands in the lead with defending Olympic 10K champion Éva Risztov of Hungary and Rachele Bruni of Italy following closely behind.
There will certainly be no more backstroke or casual swimming left in the last lap of the 10 km swim as the stroke per minute pace has really increased now along with faster kicks. [See Van Rouwendaal swimming backstroke above to catch a glimpse of the trailing pack.]
Final race results of the women’s Olympic 10K Marathon Swim are posted here.
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