Taddeucci wins European 10km open water gold in Seine, Caponi takes bronze

Women's 10km

Ginevra Taddeucci won the women's 10km open water race at the European Championships in Paris on 4 August, finishing in 2 hours 7 minutes 49 seconds. The Italian attacked with a lap and a half remaining, overtaking Hungary's Viktoria Mihalyvari Farkas, who had been the pre-race favourite. Farkas took silver 9.7 seconds back, while Taddeucci's teammate Linda Caponi followed the move to claim bronze, 13.58 seconds behind the winner.

The victory gives Taddeucci her third European title and her first in the 10km distance, after winning the 5km in Rome 2022 and Stari Grad 2025. She becomes the third Italian woman to win the European 10km, following Martina Grimaldi (2011, 2012) and Rachele Bruni (2016). Two years earlier, on the same Seine course, Taddeucci had won Olympic bronze.

I'm sorry the race wasn't very competitive, I felt like I was alone. My rival was missing, and two other important swimmers were missing too. I wanted to compete and win against them as well. Today I could do whatever I wanted.

Caponi's breakthrough

Linda Caponi, a former pool specialist who had won relay medals in the 4x200m freestyle, earned her first open water medal. The 27-year-old from Poggibonsi had previously taken silver in the 400m freestyle at the 2019 Universiade and bronze in the 1500m at the 2013 World Junior Championships. Her bronze completed Italy's first double podium in the women's 10km since 2016.

Men's 10km

In the men's race, Gregorio Paltrinieri finished fourth, missing the podium behind winner Florian Wellbrock of Germany. Paltrinieri said he lost contact with the lead group between the fifth and ninth kilometre, a weakness he has struggled with all season. "I suffer a lot from 5 to 9 and then maybe I have a final sprint but it's no longer enough with these opponents who, as soon as you leave them a moment's margin, take 15 metres," he said. Marcello Guidi placed fifth and Andrea Filadelli seventh.

Unfortunately I lost the train on the upstream side and at that point I found myself very far away. The others were good to take that gap, compliments to them.

Water quality

The Seine's water quality, a major concern during the 2024 Olympics, again drew complaints. Taddeucci described the river as "nicely filthy," saying her goggles were covered with leaves, branches and "all sorts of crap." She added, "They said it was clean, thank goodness it was clean, if it had been dirty what would it have been like?" Paltrinieri, however, noted that conditions appeared better than during the Olympics, though "the opponents' concern was there."

Nicely filthy. There was everything. A pigsty. On my goggles there were leaves, branches, all sorts of crap stuck. And lots of plastic bottles in here, a pigsty. They said it was clean, thank goodness it was clean, if it had been dirty what would it have been like?

Italy's medal tally

The two medals brought Italy's total at these championships to 4 golds, 3 silvers and 4 bronzes. Chiara Pellacani had earlier won three golds in diving (1m springboard, mixed 3m synchro, and team event). Italy sits second in the medal table behind Great Britain.