HOORN, The Netherlands – Lauren Teghtsoonian of Winnipeg learned some tough lessons on Sunday at the FINA World Junior Open Water Swimming Championships.

‘’The field was much larger than what I was used to,’’ said the Winnipeg resident after a 16^th place finish in the women’s 18-19 age group 10-kilometre race.  ‘’At the start I was in a pack of 18 swimmers and there was a lot of elbowing especially at the turns.  I definitely would have liked to place higher.’’

Alice Dearing of Britain won the gold medal in two hours and 04 minutes and 25.1 seconds in an exciting finish. Nikoletta Kiss of Hungary took the silver in 2:04:25.6 and Valeriia Ermakova of Russia was third in 2:04:27.0. There were 30 entries and water conditions were frigid.

Teghtsoonian’s time was 2:08:07.5 while Victoria Monk of Victoria was 21^st.

‘’It wasn’t a good race for me,’’ said Monk. ‘’I had trouble managing my feeding times and fell too far behind. Trying to catch up took its toll.’’

In the men’s 18-19 age group 10 kilometre, Kristof Rasovszky of Hungary was the winner 1:53:01.7. Zhongyi Qiao of China was second and Andrea Manzi of Italy third.

Édouard Bélanger of St-Romuald, Que., was 27^th while Vincent Laperle of Montreal did not finish.

Competition ends Monday with the  relays.

Full results: http://hoorn2016wjc.microplustiming.com/index_web.php