The Netherlands’ Sharon van Rouwendaal devoted her gold medal within the girls’s 10km marathon swim to her pet canine who died earlier this yr.
Van Rouwendaal mentioned her “world stopped” when her canine Rio, named after the Olympic gold she received in Brazil in 2016, died in Could.
“I did not care about swimming for 3 weeks, he was my little child,” she mentioned after profitable gold in Paris.
Van Rouwendaal needed to accept silver at Tokyo in 2021 after lacking out on gold by an agonising 0.9 seconds.
On Thursday, she overtook Australia’s Moesha Johnson within the ultimate lap to grab victory in two hours three minutes 34.2 seconds.
After rising triumphant from the River Seine, Van Rouwendaal pointed to and kissed a tattoo of Rio’s paw print on her wrist.
“He wanted a bit operation for his lungs so I gave it to him within the hope we may reside within the Netherlands after the Olympics collectively in my home with a backyard. He had problems after the surgical procedure and he died,” she defined.
“I used to be like, ‘let’s strive it and I will swim for him with my complete coronary heart’. I did it, I received for him.”
Johnson completed 5.5 seconds behind to take silver and Ginevra Taddeucci of Italy claimed bronze, whereas Nice Britain’s Leah Crisp completed twentieth.
The marathon swimming familiarisation had beforehand been cancelled after assessments confirmed ranges of micro organism within the water had dropped under the required commonplace.
Nonetheless, Wednesday’s take a look at went forward earlier than the 10km race on Thursday.
The water high quality of the Seine had been a serious speaking level earlier than and through Paris 2024, with the males’s triathlon postponed by a day due to the low water high quality.
The boys’s marathon swim is because of happen on Friday.
