Courtesy of FINA, Lac St-Jean, Québec, Canada.
Marcel Schouten of the Netherlands won his first career FINA/HOSA Marathon Swim World Series victory in 1 hour 56 minutes, 10.2 seconds in Lac St-Jean, Québec, Canada over a chase pack of Brazilians.
Fernando Ponte, Diogo Villarinho, Allan do Carmo, and Victor Colonese were all around Schouten when he hit the finish touchpad to win after holding onto his four body-length lead in the last loop over a 11-man chase pack.
It was a crazy finish after Schouten led the race most of the time. “Normally, I’m always in the back of the pack, waiting until the last three kilometers. But the pace was really slow, so I thought maybe it’s possible to break away. It wasn’t, so I was still waiting.”
Second-place Ponte recalled the close finish, “I saw five swimmers in front of me. I just thought to swim hard and touch the board.”
Like Schouten, Ponte swam to his FINA career best finish. It was impressive because Ponte had arrived less than 24 hours before the race because his connecting flight from New York City to Canada was cancelled due to bad weather. “I slept in New York in a hotel and stayed in the airport for 12 hours. I arrived Wednesday, swim 100 [meters] in the lake and trained once in the pool.”
Third-place Villarinho said, “I was conserving energy the whole time for my finish because I knew it would be hard to escape in the middle of the race. When I turned the last buoy, I just tried to be alone and a little bit on the left. Fifty meters to the finish, I did all I could.”
With seven competitors in the race from Brazil, the teammates were rivals during the race. “[We] definitely [did] not [work with each other during the race,” said Villarinho, “We are fighting for the best positions.”
After a review of the photo finish that judged him to be fourth, Brazilian veteran Do Carmo said, “I’m happy with my place because the last 1,000 meters was very fast.”
FINA/HOSA 10km Marathon Swimming World Series #5 Men’s Results
1. Marcel Schouten (Netherlands) 1:56:10.20
2. Fernando Ponte (Brazil) 1:56:11.50
3. Diogo Villarinho (Brazil) 1:56:11.80
4. Allan do Carmo (Brazil) 1:56:11.85
5. Victor Colonese (Brazil) 1:56:12.40
6. Alexander Studzinski (Germany) 1:56:16.30
7. Luiz Gustavo Foratto G. De Barros (Brazil) 1:56:16.50
8. Alexandre Finco (Brazil) 1:56:18.40
9. Nicolas Masse-Savard (Canada) 1:56:22.00
10. Jon McKay (Canada) 1:56:22.50
11. Matheus Emerim Evangelista (Brazil) 1:56:23.90
12. Joaquin Moreno (Argentina) 1:56:43.60
13. David Pouliot (Canada) 1:58:44.00
14. Evgenij Pop Acev (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) 1:59:36.70
15. Balaudo Aquiles (Argentina) 2:01:15.10
16. Edouard Belanger (Canada) 2:03:33.60
DNF Benjamin Lortie (Canada)
DNF Cormac Guthrie (Australia)
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