Chad Ho made sure that it was his hand that hit the touchpad first. Ho won the South Africa's first gold medal in open water swimming in today's 5km race, narrowly defeating Rob Mutffels of Germany. Muffells was 3.6 seconds behind the leaders at the halfway point in the race and was one of the leaders for the better part of the second half of race. The German swimmer admitted the line he took was a bit wide and found himself chasing the South African and Italy's Matteo Furlan in the final sprint to the finish. Ho had found a nearly perfect path to the finish line but the cameras positioned on the 27 metre tower above (for next week’s High Diving event) gave a spectacular view of the dogfight in the final 10 metres of the race. Ho, a bronze medallist in the 2009 FINA World Championships was being run down by the German swimmer. Muffells passed Furlan and began to reel in the South African swimmer.
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