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Impressions of the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim on the Seine

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I observed men and women compete in the Seine at the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim this week. It was one of the most remarkable open water swims that I have observed since 1966. It was not an easy course or conditions, but the athletes swam extremely fast and they were incredibly competitive.

Some of the impressions and observations made during the event were far ranging and positive:

  • The setting was wonderful with beautiful buildings and monuments around the course.
  • The venue was incredible. It was a technically challenging course set in the middle of a major city, accessible by thousands of fans (both sitting down in the paying seats and standing for hours for free along the course) on a beautiful sunny day.
  • The announcers were knowledgeable and provided valuable race information in both French and English.
  • There were 4,000 paying spectators in the stands, but there were many more thousands of fans and spectators who enthusiastically cheered every athlete along the river embankments on both sides.
  • The spectators’ collective enthusiasm never waned throughout the race – and a vast majority stayed until the very end when Xin Xin of China finished nearly 24 minutes after gold medalist Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands in the men’s race and Henrik Christiansen of Norway finished nearly 13 minutes after gold medalist Kristóf Rasovszky of Hungary.
  • Lap after lap, the field – from fastest to slowest – seems to be able to navigate the turn buoys slightly more expertly on every subsequent lap. As 11th place finisher Nic Sloman said to the Australian media after the race, “…I haven’t experienced conditions like this before. It was a learning experience for the first couple of laps…“
  • The change of speed in the first half of each loop and the second half of each loop was dramatic – and very enjoyable to watch (and undoubtedly less enjoyable to swim on the slower back half). As Emma Finlin of Canada said, “That wasn’t the race I wanted to put in for my first Olympics, but I’m pretty proud of myself for finishing. I underestimated the current for sure, so that was a bit difficult but I couldn’t control that. On the way back you were fighting a pretty heavy current and the sun was there too so it was hard to see.”
  • Although the course and the conditions were known over a year ago, coaches and swimmers were still caught off guard – and most probably will not be unprepared for climatic or water conditions in future Olympics. Canada coach Mark Perry said, “Emma will learn a lot from this experience and being in this environment. She can build on that for the next four years and come back stronger and much more experienced.”
  • The leaders of both the men’s and women’s races set a fast overall pace on the first leg. They went out fast and kept up the pace. This change of tactics is a far cry from the Olympic marathon races in 2008 and 2012. Coach Perry observed about Finlin, “Emma lost the pack [on the first lap]…once you’ve lost the pack in open water swimming, you’ve pretty much got no chance of getting back to the pack, so it’s a lonely nine kilometers.”
  • In a challenging course, the experience of open water swimmers was shown to be overwhelmingly important. This outcome will enable the global aquatic community to know and more greatly appreciate the talents and experiences of open water swimmers and the challenges and difficulties of open water swimming.
  • In both races, once the leaders surged ahead, there was no possibility of a swimmer coming back from a trailing pack to challenge the top swimmers in the lead pack for a podium position.
  • Among the finalists who qualified solely on the basis of their pool 800m or 1500m freestyle times, Daniel Wiffen of Ireland finished 18th, Kuzey Tunçelli of Turkey finished 23rd, Felix Auboeck of Austria. Among the women, Ginevra Taddeucci of Italy won a bronze medal (note that she is also an experienced open water swimmer) and Leonie Maertens of Germanys was 22nd.
  • Coach Szokolai Laszlo describes how and Dávid Betlehem prepared for the Olympic 10 km by receiving support from the Hungarian Swimming Federation and the Hungarian government (as told to Nemzeti Sports in Hungarian here), “…we are not disadvantaged by the major sports powers in any field. We got everything we asked for, and we tried to be grateful for that.”

Training and Preparing An Olympic Champion

Coach Szokolai described his swimmers – Kristóf Rasovszky who was first and Dávid Betlehem who was third in the Olympic 10 km Marathon Swim, “Kristóf and Dávid have immeasurable humility towards swimming and their own work, and immeasurable respect towards me. They are people who do everything in every moment to achieve something in sports. Many people talk about this and the kind of life they live in order to be successful, but we don’t always see humility at the same time, even though I think that’s what you need to reach the top as an athlete. It’s a gift that these two boys are so humble. They can become real role models. Kristóf is really obsessed with swimming.

In the Nemzeti Sports Interview, Coach Szokolai described their training and tactics, “Both Kristóf and Dávid implemented their tactics to a great extent, and Kristóf in particular dominated every meter of the final.

Our preparation has two parts. One is the training system, which consists of daily work, every moment of which is documented, which gives constant control. And there is the other part, the tactical part.

We knew that the competition would take place in the Seine so in my hometown, Százhalombatta, with the help of two of my friends, kayaker József Hegyi and kayak-canoe coach Pál Valkusz, we built an 800-meter course. There, we could test how long it would take to go down the Danube, and how far back, and also how much force must be turned at the buoy so that the water does not sweep the boys away. Then, for the second time, we changed the course a bit so that there would not be so much flow on it, so that the conditions would be even more similar to those in Paris. Then the boys could experience what they would feel on the Seine every 800 meters.”

Open water swimmers know to acclimatize to the expected conditions of their swims. That is, because the water in the English Channel is cold in June, then experienced open water swimmers know to train in cold water. Similarly, if they swim in the Molokai Channel, they know it is best to extremely important to train in warm, rough waters.

The Hungarians do it to be much longer term and carefully developed plan than other national team coaches. Coach Szokolai explains, “Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympic 10 km marathon swim, they trained in Lake Hévíz because they knew the water would be hot in Japan. This time they [mimicked racing in] the Seine [by training in ] the Danube. It is not enough to know how to swim in the open water. If the competition is in a river, then you can only practice it in the river, where the flow is, where the water takes you, where you have to swim in it.

2028 Los Angeles Olympic 10K Marathon Swim Course

As much preparation went into training for a fast-flowing river at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games among the Hungarians, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will go back to the initial Olympic 10K Marathon Swim course – laps around a rectangular rowing basin with warm, flat water without discernible water flow and minimal tidal flows.

In contrast to the Seine, the LA28 marathon swim course will be held in Marine Stadium in Long Beach, California where the 2010 USA Swimming National Open Water Championship and 2010 Pan Pacific Championships 10 km races were also held (see below).

Long Beach will host the marathon swim as well as the team handball, canoe sprint and rowing, sailing, water polo, and triathlon events with surfing to be held in nearby Huntington Beach.

https://youtu.be/39uD1la895s

Olympic 10K Marathon Swim Women’s Results

  1. Sharon van Rouwendaal, Netherlands 2:03:34.2
  2. Moesha Johnson, Australia 2:03:39.7
  3. Ginevra Taddeucci, Italy 2:03:42.8
  4. Ana Marcela Cunha, Brazil 2:04:15.7
  5. Bettina Fabian, Hungary 2:04:16.9
  6. Giulia Gabbrielleschi, Italy 2:04:17.9
  7. Oceane Cassignol, France 2:06:06.9
  8. Caroline Jouisse, France 2:06:11.0
  9. Leonie Beck, Germany 2:06:13.4
  10. Angela Martinez Guillen, Spain 2:06:15.3
  11. Viviane Jungblut, Brazil 2:06:15.8
  12. Angelica Andre, Portugal 2:06:17.0
  13. Airi Ebina, Japan 2:06:17.7
  14. Chelsea Gubecka, Australia 2:06:17.8
  15. Katie Grimes, USA
  16. Mariah Denigan, USA 2:06:42.9
  17. Maria de Valdes Alvarez, Spain 2:07:02.4
  18. Lisa Pou, Monaco 2:07:05.4
  19. Martha Sandoval Ayala, Mexico 2:07:24.9
  20. Leah Phoebe Crisp, Great Britain 2:07:46.7
  21. Maria Alejandra Bramont-Arias, Peru 2:12:44.7
  22. Leonie Maertens, Germany 2:15:57.3
  23. Emma Finlin, Canada 2:22:06.5
  24. Xin Xin, China 2:27:02.9

Olympic 10K Marathon Swim Men’s Results

  1. Kristóf Rasovszky, Hungary 1:50:52.7
  2. Oliver Klemet, Germany 1:50:54.8
  3. Dávid Betlehem, Hungary 1:51:09.0
  4. Domenico Acerenza, Italy 1:51:09.6
  5. Logan Fontaine, France 1:51:47.9
  6. Hector Pardoe, Great Britain 1:51:50.8
  7. Marc-Antoine Olivier, France 1:51:50.9
  8. Florian Wellbrock, Germany 1:51:54.4
  9. Gregorio Paltrinieri, Italy 1:51:58.0
  10. Athanasios Charalampos Kynigakis, Greece 1:52:37.2
  11. Nick Sloman, Australia 1:56:24.4
  12. Paulo Strehlke Delgado, Mexico 1:56:28.4
  13. Kyle Lee, Australia 1:56:42.5
  14. Tobias Patrick Robinson, Great Britain, 1:56:43.0
  15. Taishin Minamide, Japan 1:56:57.3
  16. Matan Roditi, Israel 1:57:02.3
  17. David Andres Farinango Berru, Ecuador 1:57:08.6
  18. Daniel Wiffen, Ireland 1:57:20.1
  19. Ivan Puskovitch, USA 1:57:52.5
  20. Martin Straka, Czech Republic 1:57:52.9
  21. Jan Hercog, Austria 2:01:03.8
  22. Piotr Wozniak, Poland 2:02:38.6
  23. Kuzey Tunçelli, Turkey 2:02:58.1
  24. Felix Auboeck, Austria 2:03:00.5
  25. Henrik Christiansen, Norway 2:03:38.2
  26. Guilherme Costa, Brazil DNF
  27. Carlos Garach Benito, Spain DNF
  28. Phillip Seidler, Namibia DNF
  29. Emir Batur Albayrak, Turkey DNS
  30. Victor Johansson, Sweden DNS
  31. Ahmed Jaouadi, Tunisia DNS
  32. David Johnston, USA DNS
https://youtu.be/KrgEslJMLEE

Olympic 10K Marathon Swim Commentary and Articles

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