Greek Spyridon Gianniotis remains men’s 10km open water world champion in Barcelona 2013 thanks to very good tactics and an impressive comeback in lap 3 of the race. Silver went to German Thomas Peter Lurz, whereas Tunisian Oussama Mellouli, who started as favorite, was third.
46th in the first lap, 23th in the second, 5th in the third…and first (1h49m11s8) at the finish line of the men’s 10km open water event in 15th FINA World Championships in Barcelona. Spyridon Gianniotis (Liverpool, 19/2/1980) world champion in Shanghai 2011, as well as silver in 5km both in Shanghai and Rome 2009, is the global king of distance after a fantastic come back in lap three of today’s event.
“It was the race I wanted, the one I had been thinking about. I didn’t want the same thing to happen as in London 2012, where I finished fourth”, Gianniotis commented right after the event. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. The last 20 minutes have been really hard, but was it worth it,” said the Greek champion, who won the Spain Open two weeks ago on the same course, which might have been of helped a little today. Second on the podium was German Thomas Lurz (1:49:14.5), whereas Tunisian Oussama Mellouli was thrid (1:49:19:2).
Mellouli’s dominance of the race during the majority of it was of little use in the end. The 10k open water champion in London 2012 stood as favorite especially after his 5km win on Saturday. But he probably wasn’t prepared for Gianniotis’ comeback on the third lap: the Greek went from fifth to first with Lurz right behind him, thus pushing the Tunisian into the third position.
“It was probably the hardest race of my life,” said Lurz, one of the eldest swimmers in today’s start list for the 10k. He was bronze in the 5km last Saturday and has always been on the podium since the open water events became a World Championship event.
Facts & figures:
- Spyridon Gianniotis (GRE) became only the second male to successfully defend his world title in the 10k event, and the first since Vladimir Dyatchin (RUS) in 2008.
- His winning time of 1:49:11.8 is the fastest winning time since Chip Petersen (USA) won in 1:46:38.1 in 2005.
- Gianniotis (33-153 today) was already the oldest winner of this event at the previous edition in Shanghai in 2011, when he was 31 years old.
- Only Thomas Lurz (GER – 3) and Vladimir Dyatchin (RUS – 3) have more gold medals in this event than Giannotis (2).
- Lurz took silver and won his 8th medal in this event, a record.
- Lurz won bronze in the 5k event. He previously won a medal in both the 5k and 10k event in five successive years, between 2005 and 2009.
- Lurz now has 17 medals in total in WCh Open Water events: G10 – S4 – B3.
- Oussama Mellouli (TUN) also claimed his second medal at the 2013 WCh after winning the 5k event.
- Tunisia (1 gold – 1 bronze) its second medal in Open Water events at World Championships., the most for an African country (Egypt and South Africa have one bronze).
