Ana Marcela Cunha Back on top in the second stop of the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup 2024

 

It had been nearly two full years since the last time Brazil’s Ana Marcela Cunha had won an open water race internationally, dating back to the 2022 Marathon Swim World Series stop in France in July of that year. On Friday morning in Golfo Aranci, Cunha, age 32, found herself back on top, winning the 10km at the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup over the likes of teammate Vivianne Jungblut and last year’s World champion Leonie Beck.

This has been the end of a long climb back to the top for Cunha, who underwent shoulder surgery towards the end of 2022 after winning the Olympic gold in 2021 and winning two World titles in 2022. After finishing fifth in the 10km at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, and fourth earlier this year in February, it appeared that there was a changing of the guard in open water swimming.

But on Friday morning in Golfo Aranci, Cunha changed that narrative 11 weeks out from the Olympic race in Paris.

The race was paced early by the likes of Hungary’s Bettina Fabian, Italy’s Ginevra Taddeucci and Brazil’s Jungbluth. The pace was not as hot as the men’s race held earlier in the day and that caused a lot of lead changes to occur over the front half. Through 5000 meters, Jungbluth led the likes of Australia’s Bianca Crisp and Japan’s Airi Ebina.

Portugal’s Angelica Andre swam to the front of the pack on lap four, building on her bronze from this year’s World Aquatics Championships, and held the lead steadily over the likes of Crisp and Jungbluth through the middle of lap five.

Ginevra Taddeucci of Italy and Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands emerged with the lead on lap five. They overtook Andre to gather the available sprint points on the odd laps. They took the pack into the final lap as van Rouwendaal took the lead.

After sitting near the back of the pack for the front half, van Rouwendaal seemed to take control into the finish, holding a sizeable lead and fighting off any challengers on the final lap.

But with about 700 meters to go, Germany’s Beck and Brazil’s Cunha made their moves, overtaking the likes of France’s Caroline Jouisse and Brazil’s Jungbluth in the chase pack, breaching the lead of van Rouwendaal. Beck took the lead with 500 meters to go and tried to distance herself away from van Rouwendaal’s line. With about 100 meters to go, Cunha took over the lead and it was the same movie all over again - the race coming down to Cunha, Beck, and van Rouwendaal, the last three major champions in the 10km.

Cunha formed her own line on the outside, and descended into the finish with her first gold in two years at 2:02:00.70. Jungbluth followed Cunha’s line, stealing the silver at 2:02:02.00, ahead of Beck (2:02:02.20) and van Rouwendaal (2:02:02.30).

France’s Jouisse (2:02:04.70), Hungary’s Fabian (2:02:04.80), Japan’s Ebina (2:02:04.90), Italy’s Taddeucci (2:02:05.00), and Portugal’s Andre (2:02:05.40) were right behind in the chase pack, with Mariah Denigan (2:02:07.10) of the United States rounding out the top ten.

The race water temperature was reported to be at 19 degrees Celsius at the start of the men’s race. This is the last World Cup stop before the Olympic Games on the 8th and 9th of August.  Tomorrow comes the Mixed 4x1500m Relay before the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup 2024 series resumes in October in Setubal, Portugal.

Image Source: Andrea Masini/Deep Blue Media/World Aquatics