Hungarian Olympic medallist Kristof Rasovszky and world champion Leah Boy of Germany claimed 10km victories at the third leg of the 2023 LEN Open Water Cup in Belgrade.
Rasovszky finished the men’s 10km event in Serbia in one hours 51 minutes and 53.70 seconds after holding off a trio of Italians.
Marcelo Guidi and Mario Sanzullo took second and third respectively with Dario Verani and Rasovszky’s training partner David Betlehem all finishing within 10 seconds of the Hungarian champion.
“It’s great to claim a win in the last race before the big event (World Championships),” Rasovszky told LEN after the race.
“I’ll be honest, at the beginning I didn’t feel too comfortable in the water as we are after some big workloads and our nationals last week.
“Still, as time went by, round-by-round the feelings got better and as we approached the finish I was all in – and over the last lap I was like sorry mates, I wouldn’t give away this win from here.”
The women’s race saw Boy, who claimed Team gold and 25km silver at the 2022 Budapest World Championships, take victory in two hours, two minutes and 16.37 seconds.
Arianna Bridi of Italy was second with Hungarian world junior champion Bettina Fabian claiming her second third-place finish of the LEN Open Water Cup season.
“Since the field was not that large, I’d say it was a great chance to gain some more experience which is crucial for me at the senior level,” Fabian told LEN.
“It was a great practice, a great race and again I learned something at the end as the touch panel was a bit high and I did not touch at first and had to pull back and the refs said my first one did not count and put me third.
“Not a big deal, it was a good experience anyway.”
The competition will head to Slovakia for Leg 4 on the 19th August. However, the the next major challenge for the majority of Europe’s best open water swimmers will be the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, from 15-20 July.
