Bruni and Rasovszky finish top of FINA World Marathon Swim Series
Ferry Weertman winning the final race in the 2019 FINA/CNSG Marathon Swim World Series – picture by Colin Hill
Rachele Bruni of Italy and Kristof Rasovszky of Hungary have finished top of the FINA/CNSG Marathon Swim World Series 2019.
The FINA Marathon Swim World Series is an annually staged elite-level competition consisting this year of nine races between February and September. The season kicked off in Doha and was followed by races in the Seychelles, Portugal, Hungary, Canada, Macedonia, Taiwan and China. Since 2007, all races in the series are contested over 10km, the distance of the marathon swim that was added to the Olympic programme in 2008.
While Bruni has only had one outright win in the series (Lac St Jean, Canada) she has been a reliable podium finisher with three silver medals and two bronzes and she has collected points in all nine races in this year’s competition to finish with a total of 5600. Second place Ana-Marcela Cunha of Brazil, on 5400, won an impressive five golds and two silvers in the season but missed the two races in Canada.
In the men’s series, Rasovszky, who is the 5km world champion, won three times through the season and also picked up a silver and bronze. Finishing the season on 4750 points, he was comfortably ahead of Matteo Furlan of Italy in second place on 3510.
The season wrapped up in Chun’An, China, on 29 September. This race saw the return to form of Olympic champion, Ferry Weertman, who has been largely absent from the series this year and had just returned from a break in training. He won the men’s race in 1:56:00.13, a good five seconds ahead of Furlan. Russia’s Kirill Abrosimov was a further seven seconds behind in a field that was unusually spread out.
The women’s race was much closer with the top four finishing within two seconds of each other. Arianna Bridi of Italy was the first to hit the timing pad in 2:04:05.44, closely followed by Ana-Marcela Cunha and Xin Xin of China.
Video highlights from the men’s race below, by Colin Hill.
Simon Griffiths
I created Outdoor Swimmer in 2011 (initially as H2Open Magazine) as an outlet for my passion for swimming outdoors. I've been a swimmer and outdoor swimmer for as long as I remember. Swimming has made a huge difference to my life and I want to share its joys and benefits with as many people as possible. I am also the author of Swim Wild & Free: A Practical Guide to Swimming Outdoors 365 a Year and I provide one-to-one support to swimmers through Swim Mentoring.
