Team USA Wins Open Water Team Title at 2015 FINA World Championships

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Photo Courtesy: USA Swimming

Coverage of the 2015 FINA World Championships is sponsored by Wylas Timing. Visit our coverage page for more.

Alex Meyer (Ithaca, N.Y.) captured the 25-kilometer Silver medal Saturday, clinching the highest overall open water team score for the United States at the 2015 FINA World Championships following the seven-race competition. It was the first team title for the U.S. since 1991.

Meyer finished with a time of 4 hours 53 minutes and 15.1 seconds. After almost five hours of swimming, the men’s race came down to the finish chute as Meyer battled it out with Italy’s Simone Ruffini, who just beat out Meyer.

“I’m overall very happy with this race, as there were a lot of ups and downs both physically and mentally,” said Meyer. “I was back pretty far (more than a full minute) at one point, but was able to pull back up to the front. Obviously, I’d have liked to pass Simone in the last little bit, but that’s everything I had.”

Ruffini won gold in 4:53:10.7 and Italy’s Matteo Furlan claimed bronze with a time of 4:54:38.0. David Heron (Mission Viejo, Calif.) finished 10th in 5:00:11.5.

In the women’s race, Emily Brunemann (Crescent Springs, Ky.) and Ashley Twichell (Fayetteville, N.Y.), who raced among the leaders from the start, finished eighth and ninth respectively. Brunemann touched in 5:19:51.2 and Twichell finished not far behind in 5:20:20.8.

Brazil’s Ana Marcela Cunha won gold in 5:13:47.3, Hungary’s Anna Olasz claimed silver in 5:14:13.4, with Germany’s Angela Maurer taking third in 5:15:07.6. Click here for complete women’s results.

Meyer’s medal was the third of the FINA World Championships for the U.S., which also earned a gold medals from Haley Anderson (Granite Bay, Calif.) in the women’s 5K and Jordan Wilimovsky (Malibu, Calif.) in the men’s 10K open water events. Those three top-three performances plus the 11 top-10 finishes throughout the week contributed to the overall U.S. score of 108 points, the highest overall team score at the FINA World Championships for the 2015 open water competition.

Italy claimed the second highest score with 99 points and Germany was next with 94 points overall.

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World. To reach our audience, contact us at newsmaster@swimmingworld.com.

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liquidassets

8 years ago

Why doesn’t pool swimming have a team title like open water does? They should give out medals to the top 3 teams.