Sharon van Rouwendaal enters Olympic immortality in winning 10km gold in Paris

Before the women’s 10km open water swim began Thursday morning from the River Seine, many open water experts believed the river conditions would play in favor of the experienced open water swimmers. At around 9:30 a.m. from the River Seine, Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands proved the experts correct when she punched the touchpad first in the women’s 10K, winning her third Olympic medal in this race, backing up her gold from Rio 2016 and her silver from Tokyo 2020.

Van Rouwendaal became the first swimmer to win multiple golds in this event at the Games, with the event debuting at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Van Rouwendaal swam 2:03:34.2 in winning the gold as she was joined by training partner Moesha Johnson (2:03:39.7) of Australia on the podium. Although they swim for different nations, van Rouwendaal and Johnson both swim for coach Bernd Berkhahn out of Magdeburg in Germany, as he also coached Lukas Maartens to a gold last week in the men’s 400m freestyle in the pool.

With Van Rouwendaal’s gold medal, she has made a case for herself as the greatest open water swimmer of all-time. Although the event has a short Olympic history, van Rouwendaal has built up an impressive resume and was aware of the medal count coming in.

“I wanted to do it so I calculated if I had a medal and Ana Marcela didn’t get another gold that it’d be more impressive to have three medals,” van Rouwendaal said in her press conference. “And I thought, ‘if I reclaim it, then I have three medals in a row, and then these girls have to do it in eight years to beat me.’ That takes a lot of dedication and pain.”

Johnson, age 26, won her first individual Open Water medal after she was a part of the gold medal winning relay team at this year’s World Aquatics Championships in Doha. Johnson was fourth in Doha in the individual 10K, missing the podium by just two seconds.

“We’ve worked really hard the last few months,” Johnson said. “(Sharon and I) are very different athletes - my strengths are different. There were laps where she was leading, and I was really taking the opportunity to look at the group behind us and see what was happening and see what part of the course where the girls were struggling.”

Johnson has a history of just missing out, finishing fourth in the 1500m at the 2022 World Championships and ninth in 2023.

At this year’s Olympics, Johnson was sixth in the 1500m in the pool, but her sights were set on the open water swim.

Johnson and Van Rouwendaal set the pace early with Johnson taking the lead straight from the dive. With a current going in one direction, those two made a plan to jet to the front of the pack, and hug the river bank coming back in the opposite direction.

“I think it was the most planning I have ever had to do in a race,” Johnson said.

With very little change in the leaderboard throughout the first four of six laps of the race, Johnson held van Rouwendaal on her feet throughout, with the Dutchwoman ready to pounce at the right moment.

It turns out that the right moment came on the final lap, lap six, when the leaders reached the Pont e la Concorde bridge. It was right around the two-hour mark when van Rouwendaal moved in front, taking the route around the bridge pillar to take advantage of the lesser current.

“There was a risk. I did it on the first lap and on the second lap,” van Rouwendall said. “I trained it yesterday. At some point, you can be 20 meters behind the pillar and I tried it, and there was no current. You have to do it at the right time and go to the right at the right time. You get the current when you jump over for two meters. When you go, you have to go and there’s no going back.”

“I felt Sharon touching my feet and thought ‘this is just great,’ Johnson said. “I knew coming out of the bridge, Sharon would take the other option. She really used those skills and her experience there and that was an amazing move.”

The bronze went the way of Italy’s Ginevra Taddeucci (2:03:42.8), as she won Italy’s third medal in the last four Olympics in this event. Taddeucci, age 27 and coached by Giovanni Pistelli, won her first career medal at the Olympics or World Championships as this is her Olympic debut.

Taddeucci qualified for this race as a pool athlete towards the end of the qualification deadline. After she was sixth at last year’s Worlds in Fukuoka, and 22nd at this year’s Worlds in Doha, Taddeucci qualified as a pool swimmer in the 1500m freestyle, swimming under the World Aquatics A standard in June at the Sette Colli meet in Rome.

"I am super happy because this was totally unexpected,” Taddeucci said. “This is my first individual medal from a global competition, I had only one European medal (in 10km, from the 2022 European championships)."

Taddeucci swam the 1500m in Paris last week, placing 11th, and was in the lead pack the entire race, sitting in the top three for the majority of the race, sitting on the feet of van Rouwendaal and Johnson.

Van Rouwendaal, Johnson, and Taddeucchi broke away from the chase pack on the fourth lap, leaving the likes of defending Olympic champion Ana Marcela Cunha and last year’s Worlds silver medalist Chelsea Gubecka behind.

“When I saw (Sharon and Moesha) on the fourth lap overhauling, I knew I had to go faster and go in the middle because the current was very strong and I needed to find the best condition,” Taddeucci said. “I knew in certain areas, there were more currents but when I saw Sharon going for it, I thought, ‘Sharon is making the right choice and I need to go after her’ because I knew I would be able to follow her course.”

By the start of lap five, van Rouwendaal, Johnson and Taddeucci had a 19 second lead over Cunha and the other Italian swimmer Giulia Gabbrielleschi with Hungary’s Bettina Fabian hanging on as well.

“I thought it’d be better to swim in front because I know the course,” van Rouwendaal said. “I think Mo did a great line when she took over, but we never discussed when to swim together. She was touching my feet and then on the fourth lap I saw we had a gap and that was the podium right there and I knew it when I saw on the screen, ‘36 seconds.’ I knew Ana Marcela couldn’t close 36 seconds.”

“I knew that when I went to the front, it was probably a little early, but I knew I could stretch the group out because I could hold the pace,” Johnson said. “I really just worked the parts of the course where the other girls would fall off and had to catch back up. We could see the TV screen and I could see we were breaking away and coming into the last lap, I knew it was a medal for all three of us, it was just a matter of what color.”

The chase pack couldn’t breach the gap on the final two laps as the medals were around the necks of the top three before the race even finished.

Van Rouwendaal won the third medal in swimming in Paris, adding to the two bronzes won by Tes Schouten and Caspar Corbeau last week in the 200m breaststroke.

Johnson won Australia’s 19th swimming medal in Paris and the second ever in open water swimming, while Taddeucchi won Italy’s sixth swimming medal in Paris.

“Being in the mix with Sharon the last few months, she has really helped me develop my open water career. We have been together in training through some tough times so to be together on the podium just meant so much.”

Cunha could not make it back to back as she finished fourth at age 32 at 2:04:15.7, with Fabian (2:04:16.9) in fifth and Gabbrielleschi (2:04:17.9) in sixth.

“I tried not to lose the group but I was swimming behind Chelsea but she had lost contact with the leaders of the group,” Cunha said.

“When I saw where I was, I thought it was hard because they were swimming with the current. I tried to push, but it was a really hard race in the final lap. I saw the girls who were swimming behind me, and I made sure that no one passed me. I did my best, but I finished in fourth.”

This was Cunha’s fourth Olympics as she was fifth in Beijing 2008, 10th in Rio 2016, and gold in Tokyo 2020.

“It’s very hard after being the champion at the last Olympics,” Cunha said. “But the cycle for the Olympics is about three years and it’s very hard for me because one year ago, two weeks before the world championships, I didn’t want to swim any more.

"I said to my team ‘I need to stop’. But I thought OK, I will try to qualify for the Games so I can swim here, in the Seine, which is really special. Fourth place is not good for me but I am really happy to be here with my family.”

France had two representatives in the field with plenty of cheers from the home nation as Oceane Cassignol (2:06:06.9) and Caroline Jouisse (2:06:11.0) finished seventh and eighth.

Pre-race favorites Leonie Beck of Germany (2:06:13.4) and Katie Grimes of the United States (2:06:29.6) finished ninth and 15th, respectively, as they did not factor much into the lead pack.

Water temperature was reported to be at 23 degrees Celsius during the race with the air temperature around 18 degrees Celsius at the 7:30 a.m. start.