Canada's Eric Hedlin wins bronze in men's 5-km open water
Kristof Rasovszky of Hungary takes gold, France's Logan Fontaine claims silver
Canada's Eric Hedlin won bronze in the men's 5-km open-water event at the world aquatics championships on Friday, in Gwangju, South Korea.
WATCH | Eric Hedlin's bronze medal performance:
The Victoria, B.C. native clocked 53 minutes 32.4 seconds to finish behind gold-medal winner Kristof Rasovszky of Hungary.
Rasovszky's winning time of of 53 minutes, 22.10 seconds, handed him the first medal of the world swimming championships. The 22-year-old, 2016 Rio Olympian also won the 5- and 25-kilometre open water events at the 2018 European aquatic championships.
Logan Fontaine of France took silver with a time of 53 minutes, 32.2 seconds—10.10 seconds ahead of Hedlin.
No stranger to the podium, Hedlin also took silver in this event in 2013.
"I'm so happy, it's been six years but I'm back," said Hedlin.
"There was a lot of elbows and everything but I went out there and my goal was to be toward the front where the density was lower so I could worry about fighting less and also have a great view of where everyone was going. Once I got up there I was just all about trying to relax and stay calm."
🇨🇦 MEDAL ALERT / ALERTE MÉDAILLE 🚨 Eric Hedlin earns his 2nd career <a href="https://twitter.com/fina1908?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fina1908</a> 🥉 in the 5km! <a href="https://twitter.com/IAmEricHedlin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IAmEricHedlin</a> décroche la médaille de bronze en 5km eau libre <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gwangju2019?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Gwangju2019</a> <a href="https://t.co/bsSDgV4RDG">pic.twitter.com/bsSDgV4RDG</a>
—@SwimmingCanadaSaturday's race, which began two hours early due to the threat of later heavy rain, was the first of seven open-water events at the world championships. They are all qualifiers for next year's Tokyo Olympics.
Canada's Simoneau 5th in solo tech art swim
Jackie Simoneau of Chambly, Que., was fifth in solo tech artistic swimming.
The 22-year-old, who won gold medals at the 2015 Pan Am Games in the women's duet and team events, scored 89.29 points using Michael Bublé's Cry me a River after changing routines from preliminaries.
Svetlana Kolesnichenko of Russia posted a winning total of 95.00, followed by Ona Carbonell of Spain (92.50) and Yukiko Inui of Japan (92.31).
China scores 2 diving gold medals
Favourites Lian Junjie and Si Yajie of China easily won gold in the 10-metre platform mixed synchro on the opening day of the diving program.
China also won the second event when Chen Yiwen took gold in the women's 1-metre springboard, a non-Olympic event, with a total of 285.45 points. The silver went to American Sarah Bacon with 262.00 and the bronze was earned by Suji Kim of South Korea with 257.20.
The U.S. diver moved into the silver medal spot and ahead of Kim after her fifth and final dive. Katherine Torrance of Britain was fourth with 255.40.
Lian and Si, the 2016 silver medallists at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, finished with 356.14 points. Ekaterina Beliaeva and Viktor Minibaev of Russia took the silver with 311.28 points, 35 points behind the winners, followed by the Mexican pair of Maria Jose Sanchez and Jose Balleza Isaias with 287.64.
WATCH | Canada's Gagne injured during preliminary dive:
With files from CBC Sports