SINGAPORE: Germany’s Florian Wellbrock won the men’s open water 10km at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on Wednesday, after the race had been postponed for several hours because of poor water quality.
Wellbrock, the gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, won his third open water world title in a time of 1hr 59min 55.50sec at the Sentosa Island course when the race eventually began at 1:00 pm (0500 GMT).
“It was really tough today. I think it was the warmest waters that we’ve had to race in,” said the 27-year-old Wellbrock of the sea temperature, which was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit).
“I had one year to prepare for this. We did a lot of heat training and I think that was the key today to me taking the gold.”
Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri, a six-time world champion across pool and open water disciplines, finished 3.7 seconds behind Wellbrock to claim silver, marking his 17th career world championship medal.
“I knew Greg (Paltrinieri) was on my feet all the time. In the last lap, I saw it was Ollie (Klemet) and Greg on my back,” Wellbrock said.
“It’s so dangerous when they’re so close, especially Greg — he always has such a great finish. I was really nervous and tried to push all the time.”
Australia’s Kyle Lee clinched bronze by edging Germany’s Oliver Klemet by just 0.1 of a second to win his first individual world medal.
Governing body World Aquatics delayed the race because water quality was “exceeding acceptable thresholds”.
The women’s 10km race had already been postponed on Tuesday and moved to Wednesday.
When it did finally get under way at 4:00 pm (0800 GMT), Moesha Johnson added world championship gold to the silver medal she won at the Paris Olympics last year.
The Australian came home first in 2hr 7min 51.30sec, finishing ahead again of Paris Olympics bronze medallist Ginevra Taddeucci of Italy (2:07:59.70).
Lisa Pou of Monaco (2:07:57.50), who was 18th in the Paris Olympics last summer, came in third for a surprise bronze medal.
World Aquatics said early on Wednesday morning that the new afternoon time slots for the races were “subject to acceptable test results”.
But soon after, they confirmed both races would proceed in the afternoon as further analysis had found “significant improvement” in bacterial content and water temperature.
“Regular water quality monitoring and testing continues throughout the competition period to ensure athlete safety,” World Aquatics said in a statement.
“The health and safety of all participants continues to guide all competition-related decisions.”
The governing body said levels of E. coli bacteria had dropped to between the ranges of “good” and “excellent”, according to World Aquatics and World Health Organization regulations.
Water quality was a big problem for events held in the River Seine at last year’s Paris Olympics.
Of the 11 days of events and training scheduled in its murky waters, only five got the green light.
The river remained dogged by pollution problems despite a 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) upgrade to improve the Paris sewerage and water treatment system.
Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2025