Rasovszky Faces The Magdeburg Might & Other Threats To His Crown
Will Hungarian Olympic champion Kristof Rasovszky manage to avoid having the dangerous sharks all about him sense any weakness in their quarry as he attempts to retain the World 10km crown? We're about to find out
Open Water Swimming - Men's Marathon, July 16
Olympic champion Kristof Rasovszky, of Hungary, enters the open-water fray off the beach at Sentosa's Palawan Green tomorrow as defending World champion.
His next biggest goal is a distant wish he has for 2028, part of his challenge at Singapore 2025 World Championships to avoid having the dangerous sharks all about him sense any weakness in their quarry.
The 28-year-old Hungarian Rasovszky is approaching Singapore as a stepping stone on the way to the Los Angeles Olympics, where he hopes to match the treble achievement of Sharon van Rouwendaal, the Dutch double Olympic marathon champion of 2016 and 2024 and silver medallist of Tokyo2020ne who is bypassing 2025 Worlds after making the 10km podium for a third consecutive Games.
In May, Rasovszky added his first European 10km title to his vault, along with golds in the mixed 4x1500m relay and men's 3km knock-out sprint, an event that joins the World Championships program for the first time in Singapore.
At 20, he made his Olympic debut in Rio, finishing 35th in the 1500m freestyle, his open water days just getting going. It was silver in the marathon at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Games behind Germany's Florian Wellbrock, who will rejoin the Hungarian in Singapore.
The Big Beasts Gunning For The Hungarian
Alongside Wellbrock, teammate and training partner Oliver Klemet is among podium favourites a year after he claimed silver behind Rasovszky in Paris, the bronze grabbed by the champion's teammate David Betlehem.
Conditions on Wednesday will play a part in outcomes but one fascinating dynamic to any battle in which the German pair are at the helm of the fight come the hunt for home is a constant: Wellbrock and Klemet cover 400m in 3:43, 1500 inside 14:40. the Magdeburg Might of coach Bernd Berkhahn, the most successful distance-free mentor at the Paris Olympics, with gold in the men's 400m (now World record holder Lukas Märtens), gold and silver in the women's marathon (Van Rouwendal, NED, Johnson, AUS), silver in the men's marathon (Klemet), and bronze in the women's 1500m (Isabel Gose).
Here's a touch of the speed the Magdeburg Might, including another record breaker, Sven Schwartz, has mustered so far this year:
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
Craig Lord
Rasovszky has best 400/1500 times of 3:45 and 14:51, compared to 3:47 and 14:40 for Betlehem. Conditions and the type and timing of the toll in open-water wash play into how useful greater speed over shorter distances can be at the end of a 10km crunch, of course. Even so, where all contenders for the medals are supremely fit and have proved podium form, small margins, tiny advantages, count as much at the end of a marathon as they do in a 100m freestyle - and in the context of Pan Zhanle’s 46.40 sledgehammer in Paris, more, one might say, given that we witnessed the there-and-back, two-length race won by more than a second for the first time since Johnny ‘Tarzan’ Weissmuller in 1928:
Craig Lord
The Powerful Pantheons of the Big Beasts Up Against Rasovszky ...
