Bianchi and Bridi overall winners of the Castellabate 2014 LEN Open Water Swimming Cup

LEN European Open Water Swimming Cup, Final – Castellabate (ITA)
Italians sweep overall titles

Italy’s Andrea Bianchi and Arianna Bridi won the respective overall titles in Castellabate in the two-day final of the LEN European Open Water Swimming Cup series.

A tough challenge awaited those who went for the highest ranks in the general classifications: the Cup final was staged over two days with a normal 10km race on Saturday and a 5km time-trial on Sunday – the ranks in the final was based on the two results combined.

Among the men the first day saw Hungary’s Mark Papp winning the 10km: though he fell behind during the first half but over the third and fourth lap he managed to overcome his 30m deficit. Papp held the 3rd place in the overall before the final just three points behind Andrea Bianchi – and on Saturday he gained 50sec on the Italian.

However, Sunday was Bianchi’s day who managed to clock 1.11sec better time than Papp and that brought him the win in the final which offered double points (compared to the 5 legs held in the previous months). With that 40 points Bianchi secured his win in the overall classification while Papp came up to second (as he also was second in the final), passing the other Italian, Dario Verani.

Since the women’s general classification was also quite close after five legs, it was clear that the winner of the final would clinch the overall title. Though Poland’s Natalie Charlos led by 3 points ahead of Italy’s Arianna Bridi before the final, Bridi managed to finish ahead of Charlos in both races. Bridi was much faster on both days, the gap between her and the Polish was more than 5 minutes. Bridi won the time-trial on Sunday, the 10km gold went to 2011 World champion Keri-Anne Payne: the British just wanted to compete in the Olympic distance and didn’t take part in the 5km on the next day.

The first five placed swimmers in the general classifications – men and women – shared the pot of 21,000 Euro with the two overall winners receiving €3,500 apiece.

Men’s 10km (Saturday)
1. Mark Papp (HUN) 2:05:31.3
2. Alberto Brumana (ITA) 2:05:34.7
3. Andrea Bianchi (ITA) 2:06:21.7

Men’s 5km (Sunday)
1. Andrea Bianchi (ITA) 1:00:50.0
2. Francesco Bianchi (ITA) 1:01:23.2
3. Mathias Schweinzer (AUT) 1:01:25.8

Men’s final (10km + 5km)
1. Andrea Bianchi (ITA) 3:07:11.7 – 40 points
2. Mark Papp (HUN) 3:07:32.3 – 34
3. Alberto Brumana (ITA) 3:07:50.2 – 30

Men’s general classification
1. Andrea Bianchi (ITA) 80 – € 3500
2. Mark Papp (HUN) 71 – € 3000
3. Dario Verani (ITA) 63 – € 2000
4. Matthias Schweinzer (AUT) 62 – € 1250
5. Francesco Bianchi (ITA) 56 – € 750

Women’s 10km
1. Keri-Anne Payne (GBR) 2:14:33.5
2. Arianna Bridi (ITA) 2:14:35.2
3. Natalia Charlos (POL) 2:17:02.0

Women’s 5km
1. Arianna Bridi (ITA) 1:05:34.8
2. Natalia Charlos (POL) 1:08:46.7
3. Ludovica Galli (ITA) 1:09:09.7

Women’s final (10km + 5km)
1. Arianna Bridi (ITA) 3:20:10.0 – 40
2. Natalia Charlos (POL) 3:25:48.7 – 34
3. Giulia De Fusco (ITA) 3:28:51.9 – 30

Women’s general classification
1. Arianna Bridi (ITA) 91 – € 3500
2. Natalia Charlos (POL) 88 – € 3000
3. Nicole Cirillo (ITA) 70 – € 2000
4. Giulia De Fusco (ITA) 69 – € 1250
5. Johanna Gerstbauer (AUT) 35 – € 750

Press release from LEN