Photo courtesy of Delly Carr from Swimming Australia. Shows (left to right) Ferry Weertman, Nick Sloman, Jordan Wilimovsky, Nicholas Rollo and Riley Clout. “When Jordan picked up the pace early in the race it made it really tough, specially as I was quite far back for the entire race,” described 2016 Rio Olympic 10K Marathon Swim gold medalist Ferry Weertman about his eventual victory at the 2020 Australian Open Water Swimming Championships. “I was just trying to get to the front and in the last straight I finally caught up to the leading pack and I picked my own line and everyone was fighting off to the right and I had the perfect position.” With really fast swimmers including world 1500m champion Florian Wellbrock, Olympic medalist Marc-Antoine Olivier, Kristóf Rasovszky, 2016 Rio Olympics 1500m and 10 km finalist Jordan Wilimovsky, 1500m Rio gold medalist Gregorio Paltrinieri, Weertman and 1500m world championship finalist David Aubry will be among the men pushing the pace early at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 10 km race, especially since the water will be flat, tranquil and without any currents, waves, turbulence and tidal flows. “The speed at which these guys are going to be swimming will be flat-out fast, almost unheard of,” predicted Steven Munatones. “None of the top men wants to leave the race in the hands of Ferry with 50 or 100 or 200 meters to go. He has 1:46 200m speed and that is hard to beat, especially since he is a physically large man. Like he did at the Rio Olympics when he pulled off the fastest-charging finish or like he did today with his incredibly powerful 6-beat kick, no one wants to be racing Ferry shoulder-to-shoulder with less than 2 minutes to go in the race. So they have to make the race ‘longer’ in order to win. That is, instead of cruising through the first 5-7 km, drafting and positioning and then waiting to pick up the pace over the last 2-3 km, the top men are going to have to swim faster earlier in the race. This is going to make the overall race faster – and as a result – much more strategic. Instead of making a 2-3 km strategic race with the first part of the race easy and comfortable, the race is going to be fast over the last 5-7 km. And with the water temperature at least 28°C with high humidity and possibly up to 32°C by mid-race, this is going to be an incredibly difficult race to win. If it rains 2-3 days before the race in Odaiba Marine Park at the Tokyo Olympics, then it will be interesting to see the effect of urban runoff on the water quality. The water will be smelly and thick with oils, but this effect will not slow down the race pace any perceivable amount. This Olympic 10K Marathon Swim certainly has lots of issues for the top swimmers and their coaches to consider.” The World Open Water Swimming Association will makes its predictions in a 25-part series up until the Tokyo Olympic Games begin. Australian Open Water Swimming Championships Men’s 10 km Results: 1. Ferry Weertman (27) 1:55:45.24 2. Jordan Wilimovsky (25) 1:55:49.46 3. Nick Sloman (22) 1:55:49.63 4. Matan Roditi (21 1:55:49.96 5. Jon McKay (24) 1:55:53.32 6. Nicholas Norman (22) 1:56:05.59 7. Nicholas Rollo (21) 1:57:20.90 8. Riley Clout (19) 1:57:41.57 9. Kai Edwards (21) 1:57:56.60 10. Gordon Mason (20) 1:58:06.46 11. Reilly Kennedy (19) 1:59:18.92 12. Christopher Deegan (23) 1:59:24.66 13. Oliver Signorini (23) 1:59:30.04 14. Bailey Armstrong (20) 1:59:41.46 15. Matthew Robinson (23) 2:01:14.59 16. Phoenix Douglas (20) 2:02:36.57 17. Shuu Watanabe (17) 2:02:38.64 18. Koichiro Iwazumi (15) 2:03:26.09 19. Sebastien Priscott (19) 2:03:30.46 20. Robbe Dilissen (20) 2:03:31.60 21. Daniel Miller (19) 2:03:50.00 22. Gaku Watanabe (18) 2:03:56.92 23. Benjamin Jones (22) 2:04:16.02 24. Jack Well (19) 2:12:24.93 25. Liam McHugh (24) 2:12:54.90 26. Riley Easton (19) 2:14:11.54 27. Stephen Hughes (38) 2:20:01.41 DNF Olivier Jans (19) DNF Kuu Motoyama (17) DNF Joshua Parris (22) DNF Cormac Guthrie (20) DNF Simon Huitenga (31) DNF Adam Sudlow (19) DNF William Rollo (23) Copyright © 2008 – 2020 by World Open Water Swimming Association