Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon 10 kilometre

Updated on Nov 08, 2023

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Dates 16 August 2016 Winning time 1:52:59.8 Location Fort Copacabana		Competitors 25 from 23 nations Start date 2016
Venues Fort Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

The men's marathon swimming over a distance of 10 kilometres at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro took place on 16 August at Fort Copacabana.

A photo finish saw Dutchman Ferry Weertman just beat Spyridon Gianniotis of Greece to gold, with both the first two recording times of 1:52:59.8. In the final race of his career, Gianniotis, who was also the oldest competitor at the age of 36, won the first medal for Greece in swimming in 120 years, since the last time Greece won a swimming medal was at the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

The battle for bronze also saw a photo finish, with France's Marc-Antoine Olivier pipping Zu Lijun and Jack Burnell on the line to finish in 1:53:02.0. Burnell was subsequently disqualified for a second yellow card for a tussle with defending champion Oussama Mellouli just before the line.

Qualification

The men's 10 km open water marathon at the 2016 Olympics featured a field of 26 swimmers:

10: the top-10 finishers in the 10 km races at the 2015 World Championships

9: the top-9 finishers at the 2016 Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier (June 11–12, 2016 in Setúbal, Portugal)

5: one representative from each FINA continent (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania). (These have been selected based on the finishes at the qualifying race in Setúbal.)

1: from the host nation (Brazil) if not qualified by other means. If Brazil already contained a qualifier in the race, this spot had been allocated back into the general pool from the 2016 Olympic qualifier race.

References

Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon 10 kilometre Wikipedia

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