JINSHAN CITY, China – The United States won the five-kilometre open water team event at the world aquatic championships Thursday.
Ashley Twichell, Andrew Gemmell and Sean Ryan finished in 57 minutes 00.6 seconds Thursday, 1.2 seconds ahead of second-place Australia, which was represented by Melissa Gorman, Ky Hurst and Rhys Mainstone.
Isabelle Haerle, Thomas Lurz and Jan Wolfgarten combined to claim bronze for Germany in 57:44.2.
“It was pretty incredible for a 5K race to come down to a single second for two teams that started 10 minutes apart,” Gemmell said. “It just shows you how tight the race was.”
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Canada’s team of Richard Weinberger of Surrey, B.C., Aimeson King of Oakville, Ont., and Toronto’s Zsofia Balazs was 10th in 1:02:08.7.
The team event was a new addition to the world championships with 17 nations entered. Each team consisted of three swimmers per each team with each gender represented. Teams left one minute apart and the time of the slowest swimmer determined the order of finish.
Australia departed 12th and passed four teams while posting its time.
“To win silver in a team event like this is a fantastic feeling and it’s something new for open water swimming which is great,” Mainstone said. “Now I know how the pool swimmers feel when they represent Australia in a relay.”
The open water events continue Friday with the men’s and women’s five-kilometre races and finish Saturday with 25-kilometre marathons.
Spyros Gianniotis of Greece won gold in the 10-kilometre race on Wednesday while Keri-Anne Payne won the women’s 10K on Tuesday to become the first British athlete to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. The top 10 finishers in each of the 10K races qualified for London.
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