Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.
While all eyes were on the pre-race favorites 2016 Olympic champion Ferry Weertman and his long-time rival Chad Ho at the 44th annual aQuellé Midmar Mile, Matthew Meyer proved to be the fastest man of the pack.
The South African 1500m Olympian looked mightily competitive in a pack that constantly shifted throughout the race, especially given his long, lean, streamlined strokes and powerful kick.
Meyer not only upset 7-time champion Ho to prevent his unprecedented eighth consecutive victory, but he also out-sprinted American world champion Chip Peterson and Weertman.
“With speedsters like Meyer gaining valuable race experience and Olympic 1500m champion Gregorio Paltrinieri from Italy looking to get in the open water battle, the race to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold is certainly heating up early in this quadrennial,” observed Steven Munatones. “The raw overall speed that will demonstrated by the top echelon of marathon swimmers will continue to increase. It will be exciting to see how all of these newcomers help shape the sport in the years to come.”
Top 10 Results:
1 Matthew Meyer 18:13
2 Chad Ho 18:18
3 Chip Peterson 18:20
4 Ferry Weertman 18:26
5 Tyrone Kruger 19:08
6 Luke Erwee 19:19
7 Chad Michau 19:51
8 Azyan Makhija 20:00
9 Dante Nortje 20:02
10 Martin Binedell 20:18
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