Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's marathon 10 kilometre

Women's 10 km open water marathon at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Venue	Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park
Date	August 20, 2008
Competitors	25 from 23 nations
Winning time	1:59:27.7
Medalists
Larisa Ilchenko   Russia Keri-Anne Payne   Great Britain Cassandra Patten   Great Britain
2012  →

The women's marathon 10 kilometre event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 20 August at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park in Beijing, China. ^[1]

Russia's Larisa Ilchenko sprinted to a top finish in the final stages. With only 150 metres left, she put in a late charge to overhaul the British duo Keri-Anne Payne and Cassandra Patten on the right side of the pack, and slapped the yellow pads to capture the gold in a sterling time of 1:59:27.7. ^{[2] [3]} Payne trailed behind Ilchenko by exactly half a second (0.50), but powered home with a silver in 1:59:29.2, while Patten snatched the bronze in 1:59:31.0 to hold off a grueling battle from Germany's Angela Maurer (1:59:31.9) by almost a full second. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

Netherlands' two-time world champion Edith van Dijk earned a fourteenth spot in 2:00:02.8, while South Africa's Natalie du Toit, the first ever amputee in history to compete at the Olympics, enjoyed the race of her life as she finished with a highly respectable, sixteenth-place effort in 2:00:49.9. A member of the nation's swim team, she lost her leg below the knee from a motor scooter accident in 2001. ^{[6] [7] [8]}

Qualification

The women's 10 km races at the 2008 Olympics featured a field of twenty-five swimmers:

• 10: the top-10 finishers in the 10 km races at the 2008 FINA World Championships in Seville, Spain. ^[9]
• 9: the top-9 finishers at the Good Luck Beijing Olympic 10K Marathon Test Event (31 May–1 June 2008 in Beijing, China). ^[10]
• 5: one representative from each FINA continent (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania). (These were selected based on the finishes at the World Championships.) ^[9]
• 1: from the host nation (China) if not qualified by other means.

Competition format

Unlike all of the other swimming events in the pool, the men's and women's marathon 10 kilometre races were held in open water. No preliminary heats were held, with only the single mass-start race being contested. This race is held using freestyle swimming, with a lack of stroke regulations. For most of the event swimmers use the front crawl, but modifications are used situationally, especially when swimmers reach feeding stations. ^[11]

Open water swimming events require different tactics and showcase several different racing strategies that are more common to competitive cycling, marathon running and water polo than traditional pool swimming. It is one of the few Olympic sports where the athlete's coaches play a critical role during the actual event. The coaches have four opportunities to provide drinks to their athletes as the athletes swim by floating pontoons in the course. If the coach falls in the water, his or her athlete is immediately disqualified.

Results

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Time	Time behind	Notes
	Larisa Ilchenko	Russia	1:59:27.7
	Keri-Anne Payne	Great Britain	1:59:29.2	00:01.5
	Cassandra Patten	Great Britain	1:59:31.0	00:03.3
4	Angela Maurer	Germany	1:59:31.9	00:04.2
5	Ana Marcela Cunha	Brazil	1:59:36.8	00:09.1
6	Swann Oberson	Switzerland	1:59:36.9	00:09.2
7	Poliana Okimoto	Brazil	1:59:37.4	00:09.7
8	Jana Pechanová	Czech Republic	1:59:39.7	00:12.0
9	Andreína Pinto	Venezuela	1:59:40.0	00:12.3
10	Martina Grimaldi	Italy	1:59:40.7	00:13.0
11	Marianna Lymperta	Greece	1:59:42.3	00:14.6
12	Teja Zupan	Slovenia	1:59:43.7	00:16.0
13	Yurema Requena	Spain	1:59:46.9	00:19.2
14	Edith van Dijk	Netherlands	2:00:02.8	00:35.1
15	Melissa Gorman	Australia	2:00:33.6	01:05.9
16	Natalie du Toit	South Africa	2:00:49.9	01:22.2
17	Daniela Inácio	Portugal	2:00:59.0	01:31.3
18	Eva Berglund	Sweden	2:01:05.0	01:37.3
19	Fang Yanqiao	China	2:01:07.9	01:40.2
20	Imelda Martínez	Mexico	2:01:07.9	01:40.2
21	Aurelie Muller	France	2:02:04.1	02:36.4
22	Chloe Sutton	United States	2:02:13.6	02:45.9
23	Nataliya Samorodina	Ukraine	2:10:41.6	11:13.9
24	Antonella Bogarin	Argentina	2:11:35.9	12:08.2
	Kristel Köbrich	Chile	DNF

References

1. "Olympic Swimming Schedule". USA Today. 9 August 2008. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
2. "Russia's Larisa Ilchenko wins 10-km swimming". Team USA. 20 August 2008. Archived from the original on June 13, 2012. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
3. Dodd, Mike (20 August 2008). "Russian wins, du Toit takes 16th in open water". USA Today . Retrieved 5 July 2013.
4. White, Jim (20 August 2008). "Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten a mind-boggling success story". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 5 July 2013.
5. "British duo take 10km swim medals". BBC Sport. 20 August 2008. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
6. "Olympics, Open Water: Larisa Ilchenko Uses Final Surge to Claim Inaugural Women's 10K Gold". Swimming World Magazine. 19 August 2008. Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
7. Longman, Jere (18 August 2008). "South Africa's du Toit Fulfills a Dream Derailed". New York Times . Retrieved 5 July 2013.
8. "Favorite Ilchenko takes women's 10k". Beijing 2008 . NBC Olympics. 18 August 2008. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
9. Munatones, Steve (3 May 2008). "FINA World Open Water Championships: Dreams Come True". Swimming World Magazine. Archived from the original on 20 June 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
10. Munatones, Steve (31 May 2008). "Open Water Test Event: Chloe Sutton Wins 10K, Qualifies for Olympics". Swimming World Magazine. Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
11. "Inside the Sport: Competition format". Beijing 2008 . NBC Olympics . Retrieved 5 July 2013.

External links

• Official Olympic Report