2020 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim silver medalist Kristóf Rasovszky has been swimming very well over this quadrennial – and he kept up his streak of podium finishes by winning the highly competitive, typically unexpected 10 km world championship marathon swim in the Old Doha Port in Qatar. His close-but-not-too-close victory of 2.4 seconds over French rival Marc-Antoine Olivier was not surprising given his Olympic pedigree.

Olivier’s second place finish was also not out of the ordinary since the 2016 Olympic 10K bronze medalist also finished sixth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

But what followed, very, very few prognosticators could have predicted.

As expected in the open water, the unexpected happened. Not only did the odds-on favorite to win – Florian Wellbrock of Germany – finish 29th, but another expected podium finisher and 2023 World Championship bronze medalist Oliver Klemet finished 11th and Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri, 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the 1500m and 2020 Olympic 10K bronze medalist was not even in the race.

Paltrinieri’s absence could have been explained given the fact that Olympic spots were up for grabs for each nation – not for each individual. In other words, the two spots earned by Italian swimmers in the 2024 Paris Olympic 10K race can be filled by whatever athlete the Italian Olympic Committee submits for entry. And that is true for all 22 spots in the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim final in the Seine.

That being said, it is highly likely that the two Top 10 finishes by 26-year-old Nicholas Sloman and his 21-year-old Australian teammate Kyle Lee will result in these two swimmers being in Paris – as will the top 13 finishers and the rest of the field who will qualify through a rather complicated qualification process.

But it was great to see swimmers like Hector Pardoe of Great Britain – who had a DNF at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics – finished third, putting himself well positioned for a podium finish in Paris. Over Pardoe’s last four 10 km international competitions since his Olympic DNF in the warm waters of Tokyo Bay, he has finished 4th, 10th, 6th, 12th, 11th, DNF, 11th, 12th and 9th. He seemed to crack the equation to stand upon the podium in Doha.

2024 Paris Olympic 10K Marathon Swim Finalists

As the World Aquatics Technical Open Water Swimming Committee gathers to work out its formula in Doha with the Bureau members, the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim spots will be announced sometime this week.

Even with the results of the 2024 Paris Olympic qualifier in the books, the actual swimmers who will be standing on the start line in Paris are yet to be decided. The entrants have to be first determined by World Aquatics and then the spot needs to be accepted and confirmed by the national governing body, and then the name of the proposed swimmer needs to be submitted. This process may take days or weeks or, perhaps, months to officially and finally determine.

Olympic 10K Marathon Swim Qualification Race Results

1. Kristóf Rasovszky, Hungary 1:48:21.20
2. Marc-Antoine Olivier, France 1:48:23.60
3. Hector Pardoe, Great Britain 1:48:29.20
4. Logan Fontaine, France 1:48:29.5
5. Nicholas Sloman, Australia 1:48:29.60
6. David Betlehem, Hungary 1:48:29.90
7. Domenico Acerenza, Italy 1:48:30.40
8. Dario Verani, Italy 1:48:30.80
9. Kyle Lee, Australia 1:48:31.20
10. Matan Roditi, Israel 1:48:31.70
11. Oliver Klemet, Germany 1:48:32.30
12. David Farinango, Ecuador 1:48:34.40
13. Athanasios Kynigakis, Greece 1:48:34.60
14. Ivan Puskovitch, USA 1:48:54.40
15. Tobias Patrick Robinson, Great Britain 1:48:54.70
16. Jan Hercog, Austria 1:48:58.70
17. Martin Straka, Czech Republic 1:48:58.80
18. Paulo Strehlke Delgado, Mexico 1:49:05.90
19. Michael Brinegar, USA 1:49:18.80
20. Piotr Wozniak, Poland 1:49:45.50
21. Matej Kozubek, Czech Republic 1:49:47.30
22. Esteban Enderica Salgado, Ecuador 1:49:53.50
23. Tiago Campos, Portugal 1:49:54.50
24. Guillem Pujol, Spain 1:49:55.50
25. Taishin Minamide, Japan 1:49:57.20
26. Diogo Cardoso, Portugal 1:49:58.20
27. Emir Batur Albayrak, Turkey 1:49:58.60
28. Cheng-Chi Cho, Taipei 1:49:58.70
29. Florian Wellbrock, Germany 1:49:59.00
30. Lucas Ezequiel Alba, Argentina 1:50:08.50
31. Eric Hedlin, Canada 1:50:17.90
32. Juan Manuel Morales, Columbia 1:50:43.80
33. Logan Vanhuys, Belgium 1:51:25.00
34. Henrique Figueirinha, Brazil 1:51:43.70
35. Franco Ivo Cassini, Argentina 1:52:08.60
36. Hau-Li Fan, Canada 1:52:08.70
37. Ido Gal, Israel 1:52:08.70
38. Pedro Farias, Brazil 1:52:10.90
39. William Yan Thorley, Hong Kong 1:52:11.50
40. Johndry Segovia, Venezuela 1:52:14.10
41. Bartosz Kapala, Poland 1:53:47.40
42. Christian Schreiber, Switzerland 1:53:48.00
43. Asterios Daldogiannis, Greece 1:53:51.70
44. Adrian Gustavo Ywanaga, Peru 1:53:54.6
45. Kaiki Furuhata, Japan 1:53:58.50
46. Burhanettin Hacisagir, Turkey 1:54:00.30
47. Ratthawit Thammananthachote, Thailand 1:54:02.00
48. Phillip Seidler, Namibia 1:54:04.20
49. Artyom Lukasevits, Singapore 1:54:05.00
50. Jaan Pasko, Estonia 1:54:05.30
51. Jinhou Zhang, China 1:54:06.00
52. Theo Druenne, Mongolia 1:54:20.80
53. Henre Louw, South Africa 1:54:33.10
54. Jaehun Park, Korea 1:54:33.90
55. Aflah Fadlan Prawira, INA 1:54:33.90
56. Sebeom Oh, Korea 1:54:34.50
57. Nik Peterlin, SLO 1:54:34.90
58. Ruan Breytenbach, South Africa 1:54:41.20
59. Lev Cherepanov, KAZ 1:55:24.70
60. Daniel Delgadillo, Mexico 1:57:05.00
61. Marin Mogic, Croatia 1:58:08.30
62. Diego Dulieu, Honduras 1:58:51.50
63. Peixin Liu, China 1:59:41.70
64. Jeison Rojas, Costa Rica 2:00:09.60
65. Maximiliano Paccot, Uruguay 2:01:03.50
66. Anurag Singh, India 2:01:42.00
67. Jamarr Andre Bruno, Puerto Rico 2:01:52.50
68. Chin Ting Keith Sin, Hong Kong 2:02:12.30
69. Daniil Androssov, KAZ 2:03:37.20
70. Diego Vera, Venezuela 2:06:09.90
71. Ilias El Fallaki, MAR 2:07:31.00
72. Pei-Chi Cho, Taipei 2:07:35.80
73. Navaphat Wongcharoen, Thailand 2:09:34.00
74. Santiago Reyes, Guatemala 2:09:54.00
75. Rayven de los Santos, Dominican Republic 2:12:53.90
76. Juan Diego Nunez Barreras, Dominican Republic 2:13:40.50
77. Sheldon Jon Heng Tan, Singapore 2:14:57.30
78. Alejandro Plaza, Bolivia OTL
79. Christian B. Bayo, Puerto Rico, DNF

Team Canada

Canada’s Eric Hedlin was his country’s top swimmer on the sunny, breezy morning at Old Doha Port in Qatar. The 30-year-old finished 31st, nearly 2 minutes behind winner Kristóf Rasovszky of Hungary. France’s Marc-Antoine Olivier was 2.4 seconds behind for silver, followed by Hector Pardoe of Great Britain who was 8 seconds off the pace for bronze.
 
Hedlin put himself in position to qualify for Paris 2024 for the first two-thirds of the race, staying consistently in the top 15 to 20 racers for four of the six laps before falling back. In the end, Mexican Paulo Strehlke Delgado earned the final continental spot for the Americas, finishing 1:12 ahead of Hedlin in 18th.
 
“I haven’t done a 10-km at the level that would have made the team before,” said the two-time 5 km world championship medalist. “With all the races that I’ve done over the past few years I think it was in many ways a smart race. Even though I obviously wanted to make the team, I’m happy with having put myself out there and been in the running even though I just didn’t have enough energy at the end.
 
I had the fitness, I had the tactics, I was just relying on maybe a little bit more luck at the end, but there was obviously many other people with just as good fitness and just as good tactics ahead of me.”

His teammate, Hau-Li Fan finished 36th, nearly 4 minutes behind Rasovszky. “It was a really hard race right from the start, but I’m pretty proud of the fact that I didn’t give up at any point in the race. Even when it got tough near the end, I was like, ‘Let’s push it and try to beat some people to finish.”
 
Fan, who finished ninth in the 10 km marathon swim at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, completed his first international 10 km since taking a six-month break from training last year. “I’m pretty happy with how far I’ve come in a short amount of time and I can’t really ask for more. I think I’ve done the best I can with what I’ve got.”

Swimming Canada Distance/Open Water Coach Mark Perry, head coach of the open water team, said, “It is the world championships so we’re going to refocus and see what we can do in the 5 km and see what we can do in the team event at the end. Obviously everyone’s disappointed at the moment, but we have to look back at the things they’ve both achieved. Eric is a double world medallist and Pan Pacific Championships medalist, and Hau-Li’s an Olympian who finished in the Top 10 in Tokyo. They’ve had good careers and today it just didn’t work out for either of them.”

For more information, visit www.worldaquatics-doha2024.com. For the women’s race results, visit here.

Photo of Kristóf Rasovszky, courtesy of Aniko Kovacs/World Aquatics.

© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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