Jordan Wilimovsky of Malibu finished fifth in the men’s Olympic 10-kilometer marathon swimming event, 3.4 seconds behind gold medalist Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands.
Wilimovsky completed the four-lap race around buoys at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro in one hour, 53 minutes, 3.2 seconds. Weertman and silver medalist Spiros Gianniotis of Greece were both timed in 1:52.59.8. Marc-Antoine Olivier of France was third in 1:53:02.0.
“Every open water race (is like that),” Wilimovsky said. “It’s just the nature of the event. It comes down to touch finishes sometimes. Congrats to the guys that did really well. It was a really tough race. Unfortunately, I was kind of stuck in the middle.”
Wilimovsky was 20th in the original field of 25 after the first lap and 17th after the second. Wilimovsky swam the 2.48-kilometer third lap in 27:31.6 to move into third, 41.3 seconds behind Australian Jarrod Poort, the leader after each of the last three laps, who finished 21st.
Wilimovsky swam the 2.52-kilometer final lap in 27:06.9.
Wilimovsky qualified for the race by winning the 10-kilometer open-water swim at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia, in 1:49:48.2, 12.1 seconds ahead of Weertman, who finished second.
Wilimovsky last month became the first American to qualify for both open water and pool competition at the Olympic Games in the same year. Open-water swimming has been part of the Olympics since 2008.
Wilimovsky finished fourth in the 1,500-meter freestyle on Sunday in a personal-record time of 14 minutes, 45.03 seconds. Gabriele Detti of Italy won the bronze in 14:41.20.
Wilimovsky said in a typical week of training, he will swim in 10 sessions, 6,500-7,500 meters in each morning session and another 8,000-9,000 meters in the afternoon.
“The type of work Jordan has done is pretty unique,” Dave Kelsheimer, who coaches Wilimovsky with Team Santa Monica and is the open water assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic swimming team, told City News Service last month.
‘There are very few athletes on the planet who can do the sorts of things he is capable of doing. He comes with a very unique mental focus and a degree of intelligence that allows him to squeeze a lot more juice out of the orange than most human beings.”
Wilimovsky graduated from Malibu High School in 2012 and attends Northwestern, where he is majoring in political science. He has one year of athletic eligibility remaining.
Wilimovsky said he began swimming when he was 9 years old to qualify for the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Lifeguard Division’s Junior Lifeguard Program, which required participants to swim 100 yards in one minute, 50 seconds.
Wilimovsky failed to meet that standard in his first attempt, then joined the swim team at the Palisades-Malibu YMCA in 2004 and qualified for the Junior Lifeguard Program.
Wilimovsky said he gravitated to distance races “because I was never really any good at any other thing.”
—Staff and wire reports