Marcello Guidi and Lea Boy celebrate wins over previous Olympic champions in their first ever wins at the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup in Setubal, Portugal.
Italy’s Marcello Guidi scored his first career win at a World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup race in Setubal on Saturday afternoon, winning the men’s 10km race by 25 seconds. Guidi, age 27, led a 1-2-3 podium sweep for the Italian men with 23-year-old Andrea Filadelli and 29-year-old Dario Verani joining him on the podium.
The result came as a surprise as Guidi stayed with the pack and really hit the gas on the last lap, leaving the field in his wake. Guidi had such a big lead that the focus of the race became about the race for second, which also went the way to the Italians, leaving the pre-race favorites Marc-Antoine Olivier and Olympic champion Kristof Rasovszky off the podium in fourth and sixth, respectively.
Rasovszky and Olivier showed off their experience through the first five laps, trading the lead early, but they could not hang on to the pace as this is the first major open water race since the Olympics on August 9th when Rasovszky won the gold medal in the Seine.
The Italians showed out well in Portugal, claiming half of the top ten as Ivan Giovannoni finished fifth and Pasquale Sanzullo was eighth.
Even with his fourth place finish this afternoon, Olivier was able to keep his lead in the overall series rankings with 1900 points as he has a comfortable lead over Verani (1550) and Filadelli (1500) with two races remaining.
In the women’s race, Germany’s Lea Boy also claimed her first career World Cup win at age 24 as she pulled away on the final 200 meters over the Brazilian duo of 2020 Olympic champion Ana Marcela Cunha and Viviane Jungblut.
It was a much closer result, with Boy only waiting three seconds for the silver medalist to finish. Cunha was able to get back to the podium after she was fourth in Paris at the Games.
Olympic silver medalist from Paris, Moesha Johnson, couldn’t quite match her swim from the Seine as she finished eighth overall here in Setubal.
Two pre-race favourites, France’s Caroline Jouisse and Hungary’s Bettina Fabian, finished fourth and fifth, respectively, as Fabian tied with France’s Ines Delacroix for fifth.
With the second-place finish, Cunha overtook the lead in the overall rankings with 2000 total points. Jungblut and Fabian tied for second with 1650 points, and Jouisse was in fourth with 1450.
Germany’s Leonie Beck, the overall leader coming into today, did not finish the race today as she is now fifth overall with 1400 points.
The next World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup race will occur October 26th and 27th in Hong Kong, China, with the series concluding November 22 and 23rd in Saudi Arabia.
Full results from Setubal can be found here.
Rewatch the racing action (worldwide, excluding Europe) here. In Europe, you can watch here.