Photo finish: Weertman leads Dutch sweep of open water races

RIO DE JANEIRO – It was a Dutch sweep at Copacabana.

Their first Olympic gold in open water swimming was never in doubt.

The second one took a few minutes to sort out.

Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands beat Greece’s Spiros Gianniotis in a photo finish Tuesday off one of the world’s most iconic beaches, a frenetic finish to a 10-kilometre marathon that was in striking contrast to Sharon van Rouwendaal’s dominating victory the previous day.

While the women’s race was decided by a whopping 17.4 seconds, a pack of men’s swimmers led by Gianniotis powered into the finish chute stroke for stroke, the medals in doubt until the very end — and even for a bit longer after that, as the officials tried to sort things out.

Gianniotis appeared to go under the finish line first, but he had to reach back to grab the timing pad. Weertman got his hand on the pad a split-second ahead of the Greek swimmer — a finish so close they were both credited with the same time, 1 hour, 52 minutes, 59.8 seconds.

Gianniotis missed a chance to give Greece its first swimming gold since the inaugural Summer Olympics in 1896.

The bronze went to France’s Marc-Antoine Olivier, who out-touched China’s Lijun Zu in another result that required a photo to sort out. Britain’s Jack Burnell appeared to touch third, but he was disqualified for a tussle with defending Olympic champion Ous Mellouli just a few meters from the line.

It was the second day in a row that a medal was stripped away because of rough tactics in the chute. On Monday, France’s Aurelie Muller lost the silver when she collided with Italy’s Rachele Bruni right at the finish. This time, the ruling went France’s way.

American Jordan Wilimovsky was fifth.

Australia’s Jarrod Poort broke away from the pack early in the race, building a huge lead of more than a minute at the midway point.

He couldn’t hold on, getting passed on the last of four laps and finishing 20th.

Mellouli, in what was likely his final Olympic race, settled for 12th.

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Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963 . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/paul-newberry .