Claire Weinstein & Brinkleigh Hansen Clinch USA Double At World Junior Open Water Championships
Claire Weinstein and Brinkleigh Hansen made it double gold for the USA with victories in their respective 7.5k and 5k races at the 2024 World Aquatics Junior Open Water Swimming Championships in Alghero, Sardinia.
Weinstein claimed her third open water title in the space of two years when she touched the panel in 1:25:43.30 ahead of Spain’s Clara Martinez de Salinas Pena (1:25:46.00) and Hungarian Napsugar Nagy, adding bronze in 1:25:49.60 to her silver at the European Juniors in Vienna in July.
It follows a fine Olympic debut in Paris last month for Weinstein, the 17-year-old swimming the lead-off (1:54.88) as the USA won silver in the 4×2 as well as coming eighth in the individual.
Emir Batur Albayrak won the men’s race by the tightest of margins from Italian Davide Grossi in 1:18:34.30 to 1:18:34.50.
Albayrak’s victory was in stark contrast to the European Juniors two months ago where he won 50 seconds. There his Turkish teammate Atakan Ercan finished third, a feat he replicated in Alghero in 1:18:39.00.
The youngest athletes of the championships started their meet in the 5k.
Hansen pulled away to win gold on her international debut in 1:03:05.30 ahead of Hungary’s Anna Bartalos (1:03:09.50) and Mahila Spennato of Italy (1:03:14.80), the pair replicating their finishing positions at the European Juniors in Vienna in July.
The trio set the pace early on and with the rest of the field unable to keep up, they separated from the pack to fight it out amongst themselves.
Fourteen-year-old Hansen swims for Saint Petersburg Aquatics in Florida, the same club that produced 1500 free world record holder and Olympic champion Bobby Finke.
Germany’s Jonas Lieschke, age 15, stayed with the lead pack for the majority of the boys’ three-lap race, but accelerated to move away from the field on the last lap, enjoying a 13-second margin of victory over silver medallist Balint Kreisz of Hungary.
Lieschke touched in 59:42.10 to upgrade his fifth-place finish at the European Juniors in Vienna in July with Kreisz taking silver in 59:55.40, the 15-year-old one of a number of fine Hungarian youngsters looking to follow in the slipstreams of Kristof Rasovszky and David Betlehem, who won gold and bronze at the Paris Olympics last month.
Konstantinos Chourdakis of Greece was third in 59:57.80.