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dpa
Rio de Janeiro
World championship silver medallist Sharon van Rouwendaal may have struggled in the pool at the Rio Olympics but on Monday showed her strength at the Copacabana beach by winning the women's swimming marathon.
The Netherlands' Van Rouwendaal completed the 10-kilometre distance in a winning 1 hour 56 minutes 32.1 seconds with silver going to Italy's Rachele Bruni and a home bronze medal going to Brazilian Poliana Okimoto.
Aurelie Muller of France had initially finished second but was subsequently disqualified for impeding Bruni in the dash to the finish.
"She pushed down my arm at the finish and was disqualified," Bruni said of the incident.
The race started in somewhat chaotic fashion as the swimmers had to make their own way to the starting point 200m into the water because the starting pontoon had been swept away by waves on Friday and organisers could not source a replacement.
Rio gold is van Rouwendaal's biggest title to date after coming second in the event at the 2015 Kazan worlds, where she also took silver in the team open water event and the indoor 400m freestyle.
In the Rio pool Van Rouwendaal failed to get past the 400m freestyle heats and scratched from the 800m in a year blighted by shoulder problems. But in the open water, she swam comfortably in the pack for the majority of the contest before she made a successful break at the 7.5km point to charge to victory.
"I was swimming so easily at the beginning," Van Rouwendaal said."There were like six of us swimming together, watching each other.
"I said I was going to try to sprint so I sprinted 200 metres using my legs and then I just paced with my arms and tried to keep it. I was watching all the time to see if they were going to catch me.
"It's an amazing feeling because it's not been a great year for me. I've had a shoulder injury and so this feels great."
Bruni was clocked in 17.4 seconds behind van Rouwendaal with Okimoto 1.9 seconds further back.
"It's the best result for Brazilian women's swimming in history," Okitmoto said after winning the hosts' first medal in Rio swimming.
"Today I was prepared to do everything and this was the best event of my life. God is Brazilian."
Okimoto added about being upgraded to bronze due to Muller's disqualification:"It was a unique experience. I don't believe I've got the medal until I hear the official results."
