DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands reclaimed the women’s open water world title Saturday, beating Maria de Valdes of Spain with a furious sprint to the finish in the women’s 10-kilometer race.
Van Rouwendaal touched first at the World Aquatics Championships in 1 hour, 57 minutes, 26.80 seconds — a mere 10th of a second ahead of de Valdes. The bronze went to Angelica Andre of Portugal, who was 1.4 seconds behind the winner.
On the last of six laps around the Old Doha Port, Moesha Johnson of Australia faded from the lead to fourth as van Rouwendaal showed off her finishing kick in the final 500 meters of the rough-and-tumble race.
The 30-year-old van Rouwendaal regained the title she held at the 2022 world championships in Budapest, Hungary. She finished fourth last summer in Fukuoka, Japan, where Leonie Beck of Germany swept the 5k and 10k titles.
Beck finished 20th at Doha, 45 seconds behind the winner.
Van Rouwendaal is a longtime star on the open water circuit. She won gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and grabbed a silver at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
In other finals on Day 2 of the first world championships held in the Middle East, 13-year-old Huang Jianjie and Zhang Jiaqi gave China a diving gold in the mixed 10-meter synchronized platform event.
Evangelia Platanioti of Greece won the first gold in artistic swimming, taking the top spot in women’s solo technical.
China, which claimed 12 of 13 diving golds at the Fukuoka worlds, did not enter the first two events on Friday, giving other nations a chance to shine.
Many countries sent scaled-back teams to Doha, which is hosting the worlds a year behind schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That timing placed it just five months ahead of the Paris Olympics, the first time the championships have been held in the same calendar year as the Summer Games.
Huang and 19-year-old Zhang brought some normalcy back to the diving pool, romping to victory with 353.82 points. Zhang won gold at Fukuoka in this event while paired with Wang Feilong.
Jo Jin Mi and Im Yong Myong of North Korea took the silver in 303.96, while the bronze went to Kevin Berlin Reyes and Alejandra Estudillo Torres of Mexico at 296.13.
The 29-year-old Platanioti secured the artistic swimming gold with 272.9633 points. Jacqueline Simoneau of Canada claimed the silver (269.2767) and Xu Huiyan of China settled for bronze (262.3700).
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