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Olympics Latest: Germany's Wellbrock wins marathon swim

Germany’s Florian Wellbrock has added a gold medal in marathon swimming to his bronze medal at the pool, winning the men’s 10-kilometer race at Tokyo Bay

Via AP news wire
Thursday 05 August 2021 01:23 BST
Tokyo Olympics Swimming
Tokyo Olympics Swimming (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:

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Germany’s Florian Wellbrock has added a gold medal in marathon swimming to his bronze medal at the pool, winning the men’s 10-kilometer race at Tokyo Bay.

Wellbrock raced out to an early lead and was up front most of the way on another sweltering morning in Tokyo. Even with the race starting at 6:30 a.m. local time, the temperature was already 81 degrees (27.2 Celsius) with 80 percent humidity, making it feel like close to 90 degrees.

The stifling conditions apparently got to France’s David Aubry, who dropped out of the race with less than two laps to go and was carried off the deck on a stretcher. There’s no word yet on his condition.

Britain’s Hector Pardoe also failed to finish.

Wellbrock pulled away on the final lap to win by a dominating 25.3 seconds, finishing in 1 hour, 48 minutes, 33.7 seconds. He also won a bronze in the 1,500-meter freestyle on the last day of swimming at the pool.

The silver went to Hungary’s Kristof Rasovsky in 1:48.59.0, while Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri picked up the bronze in 1:49.01.1. The Italian was silver medalist in the 800 freestyle at the pool.

Defending Olympic marathon champion Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands finished seventh, while American Jordan Wilimovsky was 10th.

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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