- Jordan Wilimovsky becomes the first swimmer on the Men’s U.S. Olympic team.
- Fellow American swimmer David Heron came in twenty spots behind with a less than a two-minute deficit.
- Wilimovsky has been the only American swimmer to qualify in both pool and open water events during his swimming career.
NEW YORK – Only the top ten swimmers in a 10km Olympic qualifier competition would place to make the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Among those ten was Jordan Wilimovsky, coming in fifth and becoming the first American to qualify for the male U.S. swim team. The 2019 FINA World Championships took place in the open waters of Gwangju, South Korea.
The qualifier allowed 74 competitors to swim for a chance of going to the Olympics. The 25-year-old from Malibu, California had a time of 1 hour, 48 minutes and 1 second to get him into fifth place. David Heron, the other American swimmer in the competition finished in 25th place with a time of 1 hour 49 minutes and a little over 57 seconds. Less than two minutes made the difference as to which American would be heading to Tokyo.
"Usually, I try to hang back a little more, but this being an Olympic qualifier and everything, the first half of the race I went a little harder than I normally do just to make sure I was in a good position and be safe and be at the front the whole way," said Wilimovsky. "So I changed my strategy a little bit compared to what I normally do."
What’s Next?
Wilimovsky has been swimming since he was 9 years old. He competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio where he placed fourth, missing the bronze by a little over 4 seconds. Wilimovsky will continue to compete in the remainder of the FINA World Championships. Next week he is scheduled for both an 800 meter and 1,500-meter freestyle competition, although he has already solidified his spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
“I’m obviously super stoked to get top 10 and make the Olympic Team,” said Wilimovsky. “Any time you get to represent the U.S. is super cool, so that’s awesome. I definitely wanted to do better than fifth, but I’ve got a year to work on that, so overall I’m happy.”
A few other swimmers to place for their countries Olympic teams were Marc-Antoine Olivier of France, Florian Wellbrock of Germany, and Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy. While Wilimovsky had hoped to place higher than he did, he’s happy to be heading to the Olympics. And now OlympicBettingOdds.com knows he has over a year to practice for that better score he was hoping for.