For the men, Russia’s Vladimir Dyatchin was the overall victor, followed by Maarten van der Weijden (NED) and Valerio Cleri (ITA). Several others stood out in the standings, namely Spyridon Giannotis (GRE), Simone Ercoli (ITA), and Russia’s Evgeny Koshkarov. Ky Hurst and Thomas Lurz of Australia and Germany respectively each took single gold medals, an obvious indication of what they’re capable of. Alan Bircher of Great Britain fared well at home in race 5 when he took second behind Hurst, but only by half a second. Egypt also had a medal winner in race 6 after Mazen Aziz took third behind Petar Stoychev of Bulgaria, who was leading the 2007 FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix at the time. With such a talented field and such close competition, its anybody’s guess who will dominate in 2008.


Chloe Sutton (USA) & Poliana Okimoto (BRA)

*During the 1993/94 season, FINA managed an edition of a Marathon Swimming Series World Cup. The following seasons, responsibility of the event was given to the organising Member Federations until 1997, when FINA took back control to stage a yearly Marathon Swimming World Cup series until 2006.