Courtesy of Colin Hill, Doha Bay, Qatar.

Florian Wellbrock of Germany won the opening race on the 2019 FINA Marathon Swim Series in Doha Bay, Qatar. With his victory, Wellbrock has joined Ferry Weertman as the odds-on favorites for winning the 2019 FINA World Championships in Korea this summer and qualifying for the 10 km swim at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Wellbrock beat Hungary’s Kristóf Rasovszky by 1.20 seconds, Jordan Wilimovsky of USA by 2.80 seconds, and 2016 1500m Olympic champion Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy by 4.50 seconds in what may be a preview of Tokyo next year.

With a completely flat, very warm-water conditions expected in Tokyo, the fastest swimmers in the pool will also be favored in Tokyo – and swimmers like Wellbrock, Rasovszky, Wilimovsky and Paltrinieri are expected to be in the chase for podium positions along with defending Olympic champion Weertman.

For Australian swimmers Kai Graeme Edwards (5th) and Nicholas Sloman (7th) and former Wilimovsky age group teammate Brendan Casey of the USA (10th), their top 10 finishes are promising and show their preparations are going to plan.

10 km Results:
1 Florian Wellbrock, Germany 1:52:21.60
2 Kristóf Rasovszky, Hungary 1:52:22.80
3 Jordan Wilimovsky, USA 1:52:24.40
4 Gregorio Paltrinieri, Italy 1:52:26.10
5 Kai Graeme Edwards, Australia 1:52:27.30
6 Rob Muffels, Germany 1:52:29.40
7 Nicholas Sloman, Australia 1:52:29.60
8 Andreas Waschburger, Germany 1:52:32.40
9 Soeren Meissner, Germany 1:52:32.50
10 Brendan Casey, USA 1:52:33.20
11 Christian Reichert, Germany 1:52:33.90
12 Jack Burnell, Great Britain 1:52:34.30
13 Bailey Armstrong, Australia 1:52:34.80
14 Logan Vanhuys, Belgium 1:52:37.20
15 Matteo Furlan, Italy 1:52:38.70
16 Simone Ruffini, Italy 1:52:39.20
17 Allan do Carmo, Brazil 1:52:41.20
18 Guillem Pujol, Spain 1:52:41.60
19 Tobias Patrick Robinson, Great Britain 1:52:41.70

20 Alberto Martinez Murcia, Spain 1:52:43.70
21 Jiabao An, China 1:52:43.90
22 Hau-Li Fan, Canada 1:52:45.10
23 Andrea Bianchi, Italy 1:52:46.90
24 Hayden Paul Cotter, Australia 1:52:47.80
25 Daniel Szekelysi, Hungary 1:52:48.60
26 Victor Colonese, Brazil 1:52:49.60
27 Niklas Frach, Germany 1:52:50.10
28 Pol Gil, Spain 1:52:51.50
29 Diogo Villarinho, Brazil 1:52:52.20
30 Dario Verani, Italy 1:52:52.50
31 Esteban Enderica Salgado, Ecuador
1:52:57.60
32 Gordon John Mason, Great Britain 1:53:06.70
33 Athanasios Charalampos Kynigakis, Greece 1:53:23.00
34 David Brandl, Austria 1:53:32.00
35 Marcus Herwig, Germany 1:53:42.30
36 Mark Papp, Hungary 1:53:45.60
37 Ruoyu Wang, China 1:53:47.80
38 Yohsuke Miyamoto, Japan 1:53:48.20
39 Brennan Gravley, USA 1:53:50.50
40 Tiago Campos, Portugal 1:53:52.10
41 Peter Galicz, Hungary 1:53:53.20
42 David Heron, USA 1:53:56.60
43 Raul Santiago Betancor, Spain 1:53:57.60
44 Nicolas Masse-Savard, Canada 1:53:58.20
45 Vitaliy Khudyakov, Kazakhstan 1:53:58.40
46 Fernando Ponte, Brazil 1:53:59.30
47 Yunze Wang, China 1:54:00.10
48 Yosuke Aoki, Japan 1:54:00.60
49 Elliot Sodemann, Sweden 1:54:01.40
50 Eric Hedlin, Canada 1:54:01.50
51 Riku Kuwazoe, Japan 1:54:01.80
52 Bozhao Zhang, China 1:54:02.40
53 Rafael Gil, Portugal 1:54:03.80
54 Christian Keber, Germany 1:54:07.80
55 Igor Chervynskiy, Ukraine 1:54:10.10
56 David Castro, Ecuador 1:54:15.30
57 Jon Thomas McKay, Canada 1:54:22.90
58 Zhongyi Qiao, China 1:55:15.60
59 Cheng-Chi Cho, Chinese Taipei 1:55:45.60
60 Takeshi Toyoda, Japan 1:55:49.20
61 Taiki Nonaka, Japan 1:56:20.20
62 Federic Salghetti-Drioli, Switzerland 1:56:41.00
63 Lev Cherepanov, Kazakhstan 1:57:25.30
64 Evgenij Pop Acev, Macedonia 1:57:26.50
65 Jose Paula Carvalho, Portugal 2:00:50.10
66 Levente Selmeci, Hungary 2:03:11.40
67 Galymzhan Balabek, Kazakhstan 2:05:02.90
68 Kai-Wen Tseng, Chinese Taipei 2:05:29.90
69 Tzu-Cheng Liao, Chinese Taipei 2:07:26.80
DNF Mahmoud Aldadah, Palestine

DNF Ivan Enderica Ochoa, Ecuador

DNF David Farinango, Ecuador
DNF Kristian Kron, Sweden
DNF Andrea Manzi, Italy
DNF Batuhan Ecrin Pinar, Turkey
DNF Iyad Shama, Palestine
DNF Lijun Zu, China

DNF Kenessary Kenenbayev, Kazakhstan
DNF Abdelrahman Mohamed, Qatar
DNF Ahmad Samara, Qatar

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