ROBERVAL, Canada, July 18. THE second day of action at the World Open Water Championships proved to be much smoother than the first as the men's 10K event took place.
Italy's Valerio Cleri won the men's 10K race in 2:00:59.30, while Russia's Evgeny Drattsev took second in 2:01:00.60. Fellow Russian Vladimir Dyatchin completed the podium with a third-place 2:01:03.00, while Fran Crippen of the U.S. placed just off the podium with a fourth-place 2:01:05.00.
Chip Peterson of the U.S. took the early lead with a 30:35 split at the 2.5K mark with Cleri, Crippen and Ukraine's Igor Chervynskiy in the lead pack. Chervynskiy pushed into the lead at the 5K with a 1:00:49, while 16 swimmers were all within the 1:00 time period at the halfway mark. Italy's Luca Ferretti made a move to the front with a 1:31:43 split at the 7.5K mark as nearly the entire field clocked 1:31s at that time.
Cleri, however, always remained within striking distance and made his move at the sprint to claim victory. Ferretti touched in fifth with a 2:01:07.80, while Germany's Thomas Lurz (2:01:08.50), Peterson (2:01:10.00), Chervynskiy (2:01:12.90), Bulgaria's Petar Stoychev (2:01:13.00) and Brazil's Allan Do Carmo (2:01:15.20) completed the top 10.
As a reminder for those just checking into results from the World Open Water Championships, swimsuit availability became a serious issue heading into this weekend. Instead of giving all federations plenty of time to acquire FINA-approved suits by having a deadline well before the ultimate meet of the year, FINA popped out 12 new suits in the last week-and-a-half.
On June 1,2010, a new ruling allowing full-body suits back into swimming, but only for open water events, took effect. Two days later on June 3, 10 open water-only suits were approved. Then, much to the consternation of many federations, 12 suits were added since July 7 with four of them being approved just two days prior to the women's 10K on July 15. That led to just a few federations having access to these newly-approved suits, going counter to the understanding when techsuits were abolished that any new approvals would take place well in advance to guarantee equal access.