The Russian Federation’s Vladimir Dyatchin held off a charging Thomas Lurz to win the men’s 10km open-water world title in a photo finish on Wednesday in Melbourne, Australia, as ”massive” jellyfish again took their toll.
Dyatchin, who gave up the sport in 2004 but returned when he heard the 10km race would be an Olympic event in Beijing next year, held his nerve to beat Lurz of Germany by just 0,06 seconds.
It is the sixth gold medal of the world championships for Russia, who sit on top of the medal table ahead of China and Germany.
In contrast to the women’s event on Tuesday, the sun was out and Port Philip Bay was calm, but the jellyfish that rattled the women were again out in force. ”It’s definitely not fun at all. They are just massive creatures, extra-extra large,” said Lurz of the stingers.
The men, though, made less fuss of the dangers in a race that only had two swimmers in contention.
Dyatchin, whose body is heavily scarred from a car accident, said it had not gone to plan and he had never before been in such a tight finish. ”The race didn’t go the way I wanted. I’m used to winning confidently,” he said. ”It was such a tight finish, but I could see that I won.
”It was also very physical. They’ve put in the big turning buoys, which is not convenient. While you go around, you get hit and there’s lots of contact. My goggles came off twice and I had to stop to fix them.”
Lurz, who won the 5km title on Sunday, said he left his final sprint too late and it cost him the gold.
”It was so close. Just one-thousandth of a second. But that’s luck and bad luck at the same time. Next year [at the Olympics] I’ll be lucky,” he said, adding that he also felt tired after winning on Sunday. ”I felt the 5km race. I’m getting a bit older now. But on the last lap I still felt good. Sprinting 10m earlier probably would have been good.”
Evgeny Drattsev of Russia came third, nearly 15 seconds adrift.
China, meanwhile, continued their push for more diving gold with He Chong (462,60 points) and Luo Yutong (463,40) topping the semifinals of the 1m springboard ahead of the final later on Wednesday.
The Chinese duo are so far ahead of their opponents that only a major mistake will prevent them adding to the golds medals China have already won in the 3m men’s synchronised event and women’s 10m synchronised.
In the women’s 10m platform semifinals, it was another Chinese one-two with 14-year-old Chen Ruolin leading compatriot Wang Xin into Wednesday evening’s final.
Russian synchronised-swimming stars Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova remain on track to add another gold medal to their collection after a strong performance in the duet free preliminaries.
The reigning Olympic and world champions, who won the duet technical on Tuesday, scored 98,833 points for their frenetic routine to lead the way into Friday’s final ahead of Spain’s Gemma Mengual Civil and Paola Tirados Sanchez.
Japan’s Ayako Matsumura and Emiko Suzuki qualified third.
The team technical final is held on Wednesday evening. — Sapa-AFP