Swimming - Women's 10k Marathon - London 2012 Olympics - Results

American Haley Anderson competed for the gold in the Women's 10k Marathon open water swim at the London 2012 Olympics.  This race took place in the lake at Hyde Park.

Here are your results:

The atmosphere for the open water swims is certainly different than for their more glamorous cousins in the pool.  You have the murky lake, the boats trailing along to make sure no one drowns or to bail out swimmers who can't finish the course, the bottles of drink on long poles for the swimmers to refuel during the grueling race and even occasionally a swimmer being hauled off in a wheel chair.  And then you have slow motion shots of people drinking....I'm not sure if this is the most interesting thing they could think of to show during this almost two hour race or if the Brits just have some fascination with watching people dump juice all over themselves.

Much like with the long distance cycling and running races, for most of the race the swimmers stayed in tightly bunched up packs.  Eventually a small breakaway group would pull away from the main pack.   Eva Risztov of Hungary would pull away from the breakaway group with a couple laps to go and lead the rest of the way to the finish.  American Haley Anderson was right in the mix for the whole race and sprinted her way to a silver medal finish in the home stretch.  Martina Grimaldi of Italy would finish right behind her to claim bronze.

The dedication and endurance required to finish this kind of race is pretty impressive, though I really have to wonder what makes a person want to do something like this.

Results:

Gold: Eva Risztov - Hungary

Silver: Haley Anderson - United States

Bronze: Martina Grimaldi - Italy

Congratulations to all the medal winners!

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