Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

An Olympic dream came true for many today at the final FINA Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier in Parque Urbano de Albarquel in Setúbal Bay, Portugal. 15 swimmers qualified for the Tokyo Olympics including Hector Pardoe who raced against his British teammate Tobias Patrick Robinson to capture the overall victory and the sole spot available to British swimmers.

Pardoe said, “It was hard, very wavy from the start. But I just tried to conserve enough energy for the sprint finish because in a wetsuit I knew it was going to come all the way down to that last 190 meters. And I was hurting at the orange buoy’s so much, I just had the goal of the Olympics and I had so much lactic acid but I just kept pushing through and then touched and screamed. Tokyo is, definitely, in my head now. Go back to training, four more weeks and then yeah Tokyo.” 

Due to the water temperature, the athletes were required to wear wetsuits. “It will be interesting to see the relative performance of the swimmers without a wetsuit – which will be the case in Tokyo in the very warm water of Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo Bay – compared to their performances with a wetsuit in the colder water of Setúbal Bay,” said Steven Munatones. “It is also the first time in recent – or distant – memory that the women finished faster than the men in a 10 km course. The waves and currents today really made this race an open water challenge.”

The final FINA Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier results:

1. Hector Thomas Cheal Pardoe, Great Britain (20) 2:02:07.60 [shown above]
2. Athanasios Kynigakis, Greece (22) 2:02:13.10
3. Tobias Patrick Robinson, Great Britain (24) 2:02:13.10
4. Matan Roditi, Israel (22) 2:02:15.90
5. Kai Graeme Edwards, Australia (22) 2:02:17.30
6. Taishin Minamide, Japan (25) 2:02:29.70
7. Tiago Campos, Portugal (22) 2:02:32.90
8. Kirill Abrosimov, Russia (29) 2:02:37.20
9. David Farinango, Ecuador (20) 2:02:47.90
10. Ous Mellouli, Tunisia (37) 2:02:55.60
11. Michael McGlynn, South Africa (21) 2:02:56.70
12. Daniel Delgadillo, Mexico (31) 2:02:56.80
13. Matej Kozubek, Czech Republic (25) 2:02:56.80
14. Elliot Sodemann, Sweden (23) 2:02:57.10
15. Nicholas Sloman, Australia (23) 2:03:03.60
16. Esteban Enderica Salgado, Ecuador (30) 2:03:03.90
17. Diogo Cardoso, Portugal (20) 2:03:05.10
18. Hau-Li Fan, Canada (23) 2:03:05.40
19. Evgenji Pop Acev, Macedonia (33) 2:03:06.00
20. Jan Hercog, Austria (23) 2:03:06.40
21. Diogo Villarinho, Brazil (27) 2:03:08.60
22. Logan Vanhuys, Belgium (24) 2:03:09.20
23. Takeshi Toyoda, Japan (25) 2:03:09.40
24. Joaquin Moreno, Argentina (23) 2:03:09.50
25. Phillip Seidler, Namibia (23) 2:03:11.20
26. William Yan Thorley, Hong Kong (18) 2:03:11.70
27. Johndry Segovia, Venezuela (33) 2:03:17.70
28. Malek Louissi, Tunisia (19) 2:04:03.80
29. Diego Vera, Venezuela (24) 2:04:40.80
30. Vit Ingeduld, Czech Republic (26) 2:04:48.70
31. Tomas Peciar, Slovenia (18) 2:04:52.20
32. Evegnii Drattcev, Russia (38) 2:05:25.20
33. Krzysztof Chmielewski, Poland (17) 2:05:25.50
34. Mathieu Mathy Ben Rahou, Morocco (25) 2:05:27.20
35. Henre Louw, South Africa (19) 2:05:28.40
36. Federico Salghetti-Drioli, Switzerland (20) 2:05:32.90
37. Tanakrit Kittiya, Thailand (24) 2:05:38.90
38. Franco Ivo Cassini, Argentina (27) 2:06:02.00
39. Marwan Elamrawy, Egypt (26) 2:06:49.50
40. Christian Schreiber, Switzerland (19) 2:06:57.70
41. Cheng-Chi Cho, Chinese Taipei (22) 2:07:01.30
42. Yuval Safra, Israel (27) 2:07:17.00
43. Matthias Glenesk, Sweden (27) 2:13:28.80
44. Allan do Carmo, Brazil (31) 2:14:29.50
45. Bogdan Petre, Romania (24) 2:15:13.70
46. Rodrigo Caballero, Bolivia (26) 2:15:40.00
47. Kai-Wen Tseng, Chinese Taipei (19) 2:16:22.30
48. Maximiliano Paccot, Uruguay (25) 2:20:43.00
49. Chin Ting Keith Sin, Hong Kong (26) 2:21:15.40
50. Felipe Lopez, Uruguay (18) 2:24:49.60
51. Araya Pumchitamorn, Thailand (24) 2:25:35.80

• DNF – Eric Hedlin, Canada (28)
• DNF – Elhamy Mahmoud, Egypt (22)
• DNF – Dimitrios Markos, Greece (19)
• DNF – Fernando Betanzos, Mexico (28)

1. Hector Thomas Cheal Pardoe, Great Britain
2. Athanasios Kynigakis, Greece
3. Matan Roditi, Israel
4. Kai Graeme Edwards, Australia
5. Taishin Minamide, Japan (25) 2:02:29.70
6. Tiago Campos, Portugal (22) 2:02:32.90
7. Kirill Abrosimov, Russia (29) 2:02:37.20
8. David Farinango, Ecuador (20) 2:02:47.90
9. Ous Mellouli, Tunisia (37) 2:02:55.60
10. Michael McGlynn, South Africa (21) 2:02:56.70
11. Daniel Delgadillo, Mexico (31) 2:02:56.80
12. Matej Kozubek, Czech Republic – European continental qualifier
13. Hau-Li Fan, Canada – Americas continental qualifier
14. Phillip Seidler, Namibia – Africa continental qualifier
15. William Yan Thorley, Hong Kong – Asia continental qualifier

The 15 qualifying swimmers above will join the following 10 finalists in Tokyo Bay on August 5th:

1. Florian Wellbrock (Germany)
2. Marc-Antoine Olivier (France)
3. Rob Muffels (Germany)
4. Kristóf Rasovszky (Hungary)
5. Jordan Wilimovsky (USA)
6. Gregorio Paltrinieri (Italy)
7. Ferry Weertman (Netherlands)
8. Alberto Martinez (Spain)
9. Mario Sanzullo (Italy)
10. David Aubry (France)

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