Axel Reymond claimed France’s first gold medal at the European Swimming Championships by winning the 25km open water race on Sunday.
The 20-year-old Reymond finished strongly to win the grueling race in 4 hours, 59 minutes, 18.8 seconds — 12.4 seconds ahead of Russia’s Evgenii Drattcev.
“The other distances are too short for me,” the Frenchman said.
Photo: AFP
Edoardo Stochino of Italy beat Germany’s Andreas Waschburger to the bronze by 1.6 seconds. They were more than nine-and-a-half minutes off Reymond’s pace.
“Drattsev and me decided to leave the others behind and it worked,” the Frenchman said.
Martina Grimaldi of Italy was the quickest woman in the event, taking gold in 5:19:14.1.
Photo: EPA
Hungary’s Anna Olasz and Germany’s Angela Maurer were second and third respectively.
Svetlana Romashina continued Russia’s domination of the synchronized swimming finals, taking gold with her solo routine. Spain’s Ona Carbonell claimed the silver and Ukraine’s Anna Voloshyna the bronze.
Russia, who won both the duet and team finals on Saturday, did not compete in the free combination final later on Sunday, when Lolita Ananasova and Olena Grechykhina claimed the gold for Ukraine.
Clara Basiana Canellas and Clara Camacho del Hoyo won silver for Spain, while Elisa Bozzo and Beatrice Callegari claimed the bronze in the last synchronized swimming session of the championship.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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