Michael Brinegar didn’t come away empty handed from his first FINA World Championships.
The Columbus resident and incoming sophomore at Indiana University anchored the United States to a bronze medal in the Mixed 5K Open Water relay Thursday morning in Yeosu, South Korea. The Americans were only three-tenths of a second out of first.
In the event, which featured two men and two women on each team swimming 1,250 meters each, countries had the option of what order to use their swimmers. The U.S. went female-male-female-male, with Brinegar swimming the final leg.
Haley Anderson led off for the Americans and gave them a three-second lead. Jordan Wilimovsky swam second and extended the lead to 14 seconds. Ashley Twichell swam third and was passed by male swimmers from Germany and Italy.
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"I went off with a little bit of a lead, but I knew there were three guys — the Chinese, Germans and Italians — that were coming up on me," Twichell said. "I just had to stay strong in the beginning, and when the Chinese guy came up with me, just tried to get into his pocket and felt like I did a really good job drafting off those three for as long as I could."
When Brinegar began his leg, he was 10.2 seconds behind Germany and 7.1 seconds behind Italy. With 100 meters remaining, Brinegar had pulled even.
German Rob Muffels, who had finished third in the 10K earlier in the week, pulled slightly ahead at the end to win in 53 minutes, 58.7 seconds. Italy edged the U.S. 53:58.9 to 53:59.0 after FINA spent nearly 10 minutes reviewing the photo-finish.
“That was pretty rough, I’m really glad that I was able to catch those guys,” Brinegar told USA Swimming. “Everyone’s goal was to swim as fast as they could. It was a really good experience and fun to race and swim.”
Brinegar had finished 12th in the Open Water 5K last weekend.
"Distance swimmers don’t get to swim relays all that often … but we put together a really good result," Twichell said. "It’s a sprint for us, so it was really fun watching Michael bring it home so well."
Brazil finished fourth in the Mixed 5K relay. Australia was fifth and France, Netherlands, Hungary, China and Russia rounded out the top 10 of the 21 countries in the race.
Brinegar returns to Southern California on today to continue his training with his Mission Viejo Nadadores club team. He plans to compete in the USA Swimming Phillips 66 National Championships July 31 to Aug. 4 at Stanford University.
