Belmonte grabs swimming bronze for Spain

Double Olympic silver-medal winner Mireia Belmonte has won bronze in the 5km open swim in Berlin’s European Swimming Championships.

The Spaniard came in at third place with a time of 58 minutes, 41.4 seconds, behind Holland’s Van Rouwendaal, and Germany’s Isabelle Härle, who achieved a winning time of 57 minutes and 55.7 seconds in front of a home crowd at Berlin’s Grünau Canal.

The swimmer’s participation in the competition is viewed as the first major step in her preparation for the Olympic Games in Rio in two years’ time. In 2016, Belmonte will be competing in the 10km open swimming event.

In the lead up to Thursday’s event, Belmonte said: “I’ll try and see how it goes. It’s something completely new for me. It will be exciting to compete with different swimmers than those I usually go up against.”

Other than Belmonte, two other Spanish swimmers took part in the race. Erika Villaécija came eighth with a time of 1h, 0.06 seconds, and Luisa M. Morales came in at 20th position. Alice Dearing and Lucinda Campbell of Great Britain came 16th and 19th respectively.