Pardoe and Robinson put in proud performances in Olympic marathon swim

Hector Pardoe and Toby Robinson put in proud performances as they finished sixth and fourteenth respectively in the Men’s 10km Marathon Swimming event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The Loughborough University pair gave it their all, battling against the increasingly tough conditions in the River Seine that forced four of the 29-strong field to retire from the race.

Both Brits got off to a strong start, finding good positions in the opening 800m’s to stick with the leading group throughout the opening lap.

Germany’s Florian Welbrock and Hungary’s Kristof Rasovszky decided to push the pace following the first feeding station, splitting the field into two groups which would set the course of the contest.

Pardoe stayed with them on the tail of that group in tenth with Robinson towards the front of the chasers in 14^th spot.

But the German and Hungarian made the break work, dragging the top 12 swimmers into an unassailable lead over the rest of the field and ending Robinson’s hopes of a medal.

Wrexham-born Pardoe did manage to stay within touching distance of the leaders though and began to make his move at the start of the final lap where he navigated himself well to move up to seventh place.

However he found himself on the wrong side of the split in the group with around 600m’s as the front four powered ahead of the rest of the pack.

That was led by 2023 world champion and Tokyo silver medallist Rasovszky, who took the title with a time of 1:50:52.7.

He was followed home by Germany’s Oliver Klemet with fellow Hungarian David Bethlehem touching first for bronze in 1:51:09.6.

Pardoe kept on fighting, winning a photo finish for sixth to split the two home favourites – Logan Fontaine (fifth) and Olivier Marc-Antione (seventh) – with a final time of 1:51:50.8.

‘An iconic course’

It was a strong effort by Pardoe, who won bronze in the World Championships last year, making up for his unfortunate end to the event at the Tokyo Games where he was forced to retire after suffering an eye injury.

And after touching the timing pad, Pardoe reflected on his improvement from Tokyo and his ‘amazing experience’ on racing in the River Seine .

He said: “I’m not sure what the initial emotions are, but I’ll dwell on it and see how I feel. I thought there was a medal there but it’s an improvement from Tokyo.

“It felt like I just swam for an hour and 40 minutes into a treadmill – it was a good race and an amazing experience to race on such an iconic course.

“My partner is French so I’ll probably be coming to Paris for the rest of my life, so I will remember this swim. It’s so iconic.

“I think this is going to be Paris 2024’s legacy – it’s amazing that they’ve managed to clean this up with all the races going ahead and I think it sets a really good precedence for the rest of the European Nations to clean up the rivers, and hopefully we can follow in the UK.”

‘One of the hardest races I’ve ever done’

Robinson continued at the front of the second larger pack throughout the contest as he tried to drag them back up to the leaders. He pulled slightly away from that group with Australia’s Kyle Lee in the closing stages with Robinson finishing just half a second behind the Australian in 1:56:43.

That gave him a 14^th place finish in his debut Olympics to conclude a strong season for the 28-year-old, which included the 800m Freestyle British title back in April.

Reflecting on his maiden Games, Robinson said: “It was a very tough race. I mean it was a great experience because this is such an iconic venue – no open water race has been like this in the past and I feel like we’re making history as a sport right now by swimming in this river.

“I was a little bit disappointed with my result, I would of liked to have got top ten but I’m 14th today so I can go home and reflect on that, but it was a great experience just to be in there.

“Going one way you felt like superman and then as soon as you turn round those buoys at the end it’s almost like you’ve put on a parachute.

“You’re swimming into a very strong current and that made for such a brutal race. Unfortunately that caused the race to get away from me in the first lap and I was sort of fighting ever since that happened to make it one of the hardest races I’ve ever done.

“I think it’s a great thing putting water quality in the news. Paris has done a great thing in cleaning up this water and this shows why sport is such a good thing for driving positive change.”

You can find all the results from the men’s 10km race here.