Fiasco as 25km races stopped in awful conditions

PARIS • The 25km open water races at the European Swimming Championships were abandoned in confusion almost two thirds of the way through as the weather deteriorated on Saturday, with organisers deciding they could not declare a winner.

The men and women's races in Ostia, Rome were originally scheduled for Thursday, but then called off because of strong winds and big waves. They were rescheduled for Saturday when thunderstorms were forecast for Friday.

But yesterday, Italy's Domenico Acerenza put his frustrations behind him and rammed home the hosts' dominance by winning the 10km title, after his hopes in the longest event were dashed.

The 5km races were completed on Saturday morning with Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands winning the women's race and Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri the men's gold ahead of Acerenza.

The weather had started to worsen by the time the 25km races started and the swell then grew worse. After more than 31/2 hours of swimming, with the men having swum 15km and Paltrinieri in the lead followed by Acerenza, the races were halted.

Italians Barbara Pozzobon and Veronica Santoni had been at the front of the women's race.

"Due to a case of emergency because of the weather conditions, both chief referees and the safety delegate decided to stop the races immediately for the safety of the athletes and officials on the course," said European Aquatics (Len) in a statement.

The judges on land had trouble communicating with those at sea on water scooters in the "extreme conditions". This led to confusion over when the race was actually stopped.

After a delay of several hours, organisers ruled they could not be sure exactly when racing had stopped and therefore could not determine a final order.

The Len technical open water committee apologised "to all athletes participating in this race, who devoted themselves to hard work to be ready for this event".

Often when a race is abandoned, the swimmers head straight for the finish to determine the winner, and some contestants did that.

Julien Issoulie, the French swimming team technical director, told Agence France-Presse: "We saw that the race was stopped but we did not have any information."

French swimmer Aurelie Muller, a double 10km world champion and the bronze medallist in the earlier 5km event, tweeted her disapproval. "Another great promotion of our sport," she wrote.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE