In a much less crowded race than yesterday’s 10km individual events, eight teams consisting of two men and two women comprised the field, with one team from Spain, two from Italy and France, and three from Australia.
The Italian team of Giulia Gabbrielleschi, Martina De Memme, Dario Verani and Gregorio Paltrinieri took the gold medal with an overall time of 1:07:51.74, which came as no surprise to those following with Verani (25K) and Paltrinieri (10K) taking gold medals from last week’s FINA World Championships in Budapest. In addition, Gabbrielleschi won bronze in the 5K individually so it was going to take a lot to beat them.
The Australian team finished in second in a photo finish with the second Italian team. The Australians had sent a large contingent to the Olympic venue as the team of Moesha Johnson, Kareena Lee, Nicholas Sloman and Kyle Lee had held the lead for the majority of the race before the first Italian team took over on the last two men’s legs. Australia was second at 1:08:03.75 while the second Italian team was third with the exact same time listed.
That team of yesterday’s 10K silver medalist Ginevra Taddeucci, along with Barbara Pozzobon, Pasquale Sanzullo and Andrea Manzi finished with the bronze medal.
The French team consisting of Worlds medalists Aurelie Muller and Axel Reymond could not catch the lead pack as they finished fifth overall (1:09:31.55) behind Spain (1:09:30.97) in fourth.
A few of the best open water swimmers in the world were on hand at the FINA Marathon World Series to see the city of Paris over two years out from the next Olympic Games. Although the World Series here is not in the same venue that open water swimming will be in two years' time, the athletes have the benefit of seeing the city and what the environment may entail in 2024.
With water temperatures at 21.8 degrees Celsius, it was a much more comfortable racing temperature than in Budapest last week at the FINA World Championships where water temperatures were recorded at 28 degrees at the official temperature measurement done two hours before the race start.
Australia (1:10:14.22), France (1:10:14.70), and Australia (1:11:21.78) rounded out the eight-team field.