Moesha Johnson of Australia won her second gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships, by winning the 5-kilometre race in Singapore.
The Australian beat Italian Ginevra Taddeucci, whom she also beat to gold in the 10km race earlier in the week. This was also Australia’s third medal of the world titles, with Kyle Lee winning bronze in Wednesday’s men’s 10km race.
Johnson delivered a thrilling sprint finish after 1 hour, 2 minutes and 1 second of swimming in the 5km event.
“A little bit of shock,” an exhausted Johnson said after the race.
“That was harder than I expected. The body’s not feeling too crash hot.
“To come away with two world titles in two plus days, in 30 degrees plus water, you can’t ask for much more than that.”
Ichika Kajimoto of Japan finished third, 27.6 seconds behind Johnson.
Johnson and Ginevra Taddeucci of Italy were embroiled in a tense and thrilling sprint to the finish line.
“When it comes to a close finish, I just think about what I’ve been through over the last 12, 18 months.
“Nobody’s getting past me.”
Moesha Johnson now has three World Aquatics Championships gold medals to her name.
The Aussie will next feature in the 3km knockout sprint – which is making its world championship debut – on July 19, followed by the Australians’ title defence in the mixed 4×1,500m relay gold the next day.
Attention will then turn to the pool, where she will compete in both the 1,500m and 800m freestyle events.
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Water-quality problems had plagued the open water events, leading to several delays at Sentosa, the island area on the coast of Singapore.
The events were delayed due to high levels of E. coli in the water, although that had settled before the 10km events on Thursday.
Water quality is not an unusual problem for open-water swimmers, who also had to deal with multiple delays at the Paris Olympics last year.
