News & Articles

Weinberger 23rd, Guertin 28th in hard-fought 10-km

2017 FINA World Championships –

LAKE BALATON, HUNGARY – Richard Weinberger and Philippe Guertin finished 23rd and 28th in a grueling 10-kilometer open water race at the FINA World Championships in Hungary.

Weinberger and Guertin were only 37 and 42 seconds behind first place Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands. Jordan Wilimovsky of USA and Marc-Antoine Olivier of France were second and third. Full results are available here: http://www.omegatiming.com/File/Download?id=000111050002DA04FFFFFFFFFFFFFF01

The lead pack stayed together throughout the duration of the race, only thinning out in the final kilometre.

Guertin, of Montreal, wasn’t used to the long battle that occurred.

“I have never swum in a pack like that, with good swimmers in a pack fighting the whole time. I need more experience in big packs like that.”

The 26-year-old, who swims for CAMO, didn’t have the finish he wanted.

“I tried to stay cool, but everyone was pretty bunched up almost till the end. I got stuck in the back and tried to push the last 200 metres but it was too late.”

Mark Perry, Canada’s Distance/Open Water Coach, thought both swimmers had set themselves up well in the first three-quarters of the race.

“I think both boys executed the first three laps well. Richard was in a perfect position halfway around the fourth lap, but just didn’t have any speed at the end of the race.”

Perry addressed the lack of closing speed as something to improve moving forward.

“Something we can go back and work on is to find out where we give our open water swimmers the speed they need to compete in this modern world of open water swimming, where people are able to swim fast in the pool and transfer it to the open water.”

The FINA World Championships continues Wednesday with the women’s 5-km, and will feature Canadian Breanne Siwicki.

The World Championships are taking place in Budapest until July 30, and will be streamed live by CBC at http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/aquatics