Dutch iron-woman Sharon van Rouwendaal claimed her second Olympic women's 10km marathon swimming gold medal this morning by snatching the lead late from Australia's silver medallist Moesha Johnson in the long slog through the river Seine.
Ireland's gold and bronze medal winner Daniel Wiffen is due to take part in the men's race tomorrow at 6.30am Irish time.
The women's race went ahead as scheduled after organisers said the water quality in the river Seine had met acceptable thresholds.
Van Rouwendaal celebrated her second Olympic triumph, eight years after topping the podium at Rio 2016.
She bided her time before striking late in the final leg up-stream against the current, zipping around a pylon at the Pont des Invalides before powering past Johnson for the lead.
She held it over the last few hundred metres, crossing the finish after a lung-busting two hours, three minutes and 34.2 seconds, 5.5 seconds ahead of Johnson. Ginevra Taddeucci won the bronze for Italy in 2:03.42.8.
The completion of the women's event without any apparent incident will have been a relief for city officials who have staked much on cleaning up the urban waterway.
The swimmers dived off a pontoon by the Alexandre III bridge right on schedule at 6.30am Irish time and swam furiously toward the Pont de l'Alma on a 1.67km loop to be completed six times between the two city bridges.
They flew down-river with the current but had to slog their way up-river on each of the return legs, hugging the banks to try to minimise the force of strong currents.
Johnson rounded the first lap in front, conceded the lead to Van Rouwendaal but won it back downstream on lap four.
The pair were joined by Taddeucci in a three-woman breakaway and blew out the gap to the rest of the field by more than 30 seconds before the wily Van Rouwendaal's late burst saw her take control.
Brazil's Ana Marcela Cunha, who pipped Van Rouwendaal to gold in Tokyo three years ago, finished fourth.
French authorities spent €1.4 billion on upgrading the city's sewage systems, promising the river will be clean for residents to swim in by next summer.
However, water quality issues proved a headache for organisers during the triathlon events, with familiarisation sessions cancelled and the men's race postponed by 24 hours.
A familiarisation session for the marathon swimming was cancelled on Tuesday due to concerns over water pollution but another went ahead yesterday.
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