The Fina 10-kilometre Marathon Swimming World Cup, the second leg of the seven-race series, took place at the Corniche Breakwater on Friday.
French fancies
France’s Marc Antoine Olivier and Aurelie Muller made their first visits to the capital city a memorable one. They emerged as the winners of the men’s and women’s 10k races along the Abu Dhabi waterfront on Friday.
Olivier produced a strong late finish to edge out Briton Jack Burnell and Italy’s Simone Ruffini, and Muller emerged a comfortable winner of the women’s race from the Brazilian pair Poliana Cintra and Ana Marcela Da Cunha.
Defence
Last year’s winner of the inaugural leg in Abu Dhabi, Axel Reymond, also from France, finished fourth, and the women’s defending champion and winner of the opening leg in Argentine Rachele Bruni of Italy was fifth.
‘Challenges’
“There were a lot of challenges to overcome in this race,” said Olivier. “There were swimmers here who will be going to the Rio Games, a lot of buoys to negotiate.
“The last two laps were very fast, which was another challenge. So it was a difficult race but I managed to win.”
Power play
Olivier was 15th at the end of the opening two-kilometre lap, improved two places in the next and was 22nd at the end of the third lap.
He moved to fifth in the penultimate lap and forged clear on the final 50 metres to win in a time of 1 hour 47 minutes 39.6 seconds, 4.7 seconds ahead of Burnell and Ruffini.
Strong representation
France arrived with the biggest contingent as part of their preparation for the 2016 Olympics.
“We arrived with 17 swimmers and it was important for us to show our federation that our preparation is going well,” said Muller.
“The competition was strong as it should be for a race at this level and the weather conditions were good in Abu Dhabi today.”
Moving on
Hungary in June is the next stop of the world race series followed by Canada in July and August, China and Hong Kong, both in October.
apassela@thenational.ae
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