Jack Burnell narrowly missed out on a medal and was then disqualified in the Men’s 10km marathon race at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The Loughborough based swimmer was in excellent form over the course of the race, finding himself in medal position on a number of occasions. At the end of both the second and the third laps, he was sitting comfortably in bronze position, 40s behind Australian Jarrod Poort whose lead was being eroded by the chasing pack.
The final lap was a battle from start to finish. By the final 250m, there were around eight swimmers almost in a line, Burnell sitting on the outside looking a strong contender. However, despite reaching the end in fifth place and initially given a time equal to places 3 and 4, he was disqualified in the final couple of metres.
Burnell commented: I’m furious because I should have won the race. The guy [Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia] grabbed my leg. He was yellow carded for that which stopped me winning. I was disqualified for getting him off to try and win the race.”
Ferry Weertman (NED, 1:52:59.8) lived up to his twitter handle (@VeryFerryFast) to win gold, Spiros Gianniotis (GRE, 1:52:59.8) was second and Marc-Antoine Olivier (FRA, 1:53:02.0) awarded bronze.
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