The men's marathon swim over a distance of 10 kilometres at the 2012 Olympic Games in London took place on 10 August in the Serpentine at Hyde Park.

Outclassing a vast field of rivals, Tunisia's Oussama Mellouli built a historic milestone as the first ever swimmer to capture Olympic titles in both pool and open water. Around the 7 km mark, Mellouli quickly opened up a three-body-length lead over a small pack of swimmers, and maintained a fast pace to claim his second gold and third career medal in 1:49:55.1. Chasing for two more Olympic medals in a grueling race, Germany's Thomas Lurz finished behind the leader by 3.4 seconds with a silver in 1:49:58.5, while Canada's Richard Weinberger, who pulled off a powerful lead on the first lap, grabbed the bronze in 1:50:00.3.

Greece's Spyridon Gianniotis, the reigning world champion, mounted a spirited challenge against Mellouli, Lurz and Weinberger in pursuit, but dropped back in the last 200 metres to fourth in 1:50:05.3. Enjoying a massive support from the home crowd at Hyde Park, Great Britain's Daniel Fogg struggled to maintain his form after the fourth lap, but pushed himself further from behind with a spectacular swim to claim a fifth spot in 1:50:37.3. Fogg was followed in sixth and seventh respectively by Russian duo Sergey Bolshakov (1:50:40.1) and Vladimir Dyatchin (1:50:42.8), while Lurz's teammate Andreas Waschburger, who led both the third and fourth lap ahead of Mellouli and Weinberger, faded down the stretch to pick up the eighth spot in 1:50:44.4. Bulgaria's four-time Olympian Petar Stoychev finished ninth in 1:50:46.2 to hold off an American open water swimmer Alex Meyer (1:50:48.2) by exactly two seconds.

As the remaining swimmers completed the race, Guam's 16-year-old teen Benjamin Schulte fought off audaciously throughout the open-water course to round out the field with a twenty-fifth place time in 2:03:35.1.

Qualification

The men's 10 km open water marathon at the 2012 Olympics featured a field of 25 swimmers: 10: the top-10 finishers in the 10 km race at the 2011 FINA World Championships. 9: the top-9 finishers at the 2012 Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier (8–9 June 2012 in Setúbal, Portugal). 5: one representative from each FINA continent (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania). (These were selected based on the finishes at the qualifying race in Setúbal.) 1: from the host nation (Great Britain) if not qualified by other means. If Great Britain already had a qualifier in the race, this spot was allocated back into the general pool from the 2012 qualifying race.

Results Rank Athlete Nation Time Timebehind Notes Oussama Mellouli 1:49:55.1 Thomas Lurz 1:49:58.5 +3.4 Richard Weinberger 1:50:00.3 +5.2 4 Spyridon Gianniotis 1:50:05.3 +10.2 5 Daniel Fogg 1:50:37.3 +42.2 6 Sergey Bolshakov 1:50:40.1 +45.0 7 Vladimir Dyatchin 1:50:42.8 +47.7 8 Andreas Waschburger 1:50:44.4 +49.3 Warning 9 Petar Stoychev 1:50:46.2 +51.1 10 Alex Meyer 1:50:48.2 +53.1 11 Julien Sauvage 1:50:51.3 +56.2 12 Hercules Troyden Prinsloo 1:50:52.9 +57.8 Warning 12 Erwin Maldonado 1:50:52.9 +57.8 14 Igor Chervynskiy 1:50:56.9 +1:01.8 15 Yasunari Hirai 1:51:20.1 +1:25.0 Warning 16 Brian Ryckeman 1:51:27.1 +1:32.0 17 Valerio Cleri 1:51:29.5 +1:34.4 18 Csaba Gercsák 1:51:30.9 +1:35.8 19 Arseniy Lavrentyev 1:51:37.2 +1:42.1 20 Ky Hurst 1:51:41.3 +1:46.2 21 Ivan Enderica Ochoa 1:52:28.6 +2:33.5 22 Yuriy Kudinov 1:52:59.0 +3:03.9 23 Francisco Hervás 1:53:27.8 +3:32.7 24 Mazen Metwaly 1:54:33.2 +4:38.1 Warning 25 Benjamin Schulte 2:03:35.1 +13:40.0

References

External links

Map of the Course