Courtesy of USA Swimming, Castaic Lake, California.
After his dominating 10 km performance during this past weekend’s USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Championships, Jordan Wilimovsky decided to skip the 5 km race two days later at Castaic Lake in Southern California.
This opened up the competition to his American rivals, both his junior (David Heron from the University of Tennessee) and his senior (Andrew Gemmell formerly of the University of Georgia).
The American duo made an exciting game of it after dropping the lead pack that included three foreign swimmers (Caleb Hughes, Tony Robinson and Eric Hedlin) and two younger ones (18-year-old Taylor Abbott and 17-year-old Michael Brinegar).
Unlike his more strategic pattern in Friday’s 10 km race, Heron decided to forge into an early lead and challenge his competitors to keep up.
Gemmell, whose 10 km race was wrapped in controversy (see here), ultimately chased him down, but came up just three tenths of a second short.
Official Results:
1. David Heron 57:25.75
2. Andrew Gemmell 57:26.08
3. Caleb Hughes (Great Britain) 57:28.35
4. Tony Robinson (Great Britain) 57:28.88
5. Eric Hedlin (Canada) 57:29.04
6. Taylor Abbott 57:35.32
7. Michael Brinegar 57:38.02
8. Chip Peterson 57:39.48
9. Chris Yeager 57:39.82
10. Aaron Apel 57:40.49
11. Chris Deegan (Australia) 57:41.80
12. Simon Huitenga (Australia) 57:42.21
13. Brendan Casey 57:46.04
14. Brennan Gravley 57:48.19
15. Simon Lamar 57:52.14
16. Chris Bready 57:55.31
17. Taylor Delk 57:55.40
18. True Sweetser 57:57.98
19. Richard Weinberger (Canada) 57:59.36
20. Sam Rice 58:06.31
21. T.C. Smith 58:06.85
22. Philippe Guertin (Canada) 58:12.34
23. Carter Grimes 58:14.69
24. Taylor Uselis 58:16.45
25. Ivan Puskovitch 58:17.23
26. Ben Lawless 58:18.91
27. Joseph Gutierrez 58:32.60
28. Blake Manganiello 1:00:03.81
29. Tyler Jones 1:01:01.13
30. Ford Blaylock 1:02:50.16
31. Chris Balbo 1:02:50.38
32. Alex Robinson 1:03:04.87
33. Marcelo Fi Gueiredo 1:03:14.54
34. Kevin Chao 1:03:24.39
35. Matthew Hillmer 1:03:25.31
36. Christopher Mykkanen 1:03:27.43
37. Ian Bidwell 1:04:05.02
38. Clark Wakeland 1:04:19.24
39. Brody Lewis 1:04:21.52
40. Dylan Keer 1:06:06.81
DNF Matteo Sogne
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