Jordan Wilimovsky’s journey at the Rio Olympics came to a close without a podium appearance Tuesday morning when he finished fifth in the 10k marathon open water swim.
Wilimovsky initially placed sixth in the near-two hour race, but was bumped up after Great Britain’s Jack Burnell was disqualified post-race. Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands won gold, while Spiros Gianniotis of Greece took silver.
“Every open water race, just because of the nature of the sport, comes down to touch finishes sometimes,” Wilimovsky said after the race. “I kind of got pushed abound, but congrats to the guys who did really well. It was a really tough race.”
After swimming among the leaders in the late stages of the open water swim and briefly taking the lead down the stretch, Wilimovsky finished with a time of 1:53:03.2, 3.4 seconds out of gold and 1.2 seconds away from bronze. Wilimovsky’s finish is the best-ever by an American male in the Olympic Games in this event since it was first introduced in 2008.
The 2015 world champion, who finished fourth in the 1500mm freestyle with a time of 14:45.03 on Saturday, will leave Rio as the only swimmer in U.S. history to compete in marathon and in the pool in the same Olympics.
