Sharon van Rouwendaal wins gold in swimming; 10th gold medal for the Netherlands

Sharon van Rouwendaal has continued her and the Netherlands’ dominance in Olympic open-water swimming by winning gold in Paris. The 30-year-old finished first in the 10-kilometer marathon in the Seine, making her the first open-water swimmer with two Olympic gold medals and the first with three medals in total.

Van Rouwendaal, who grew up in Soest, won gold in Rio in 2016 and silver in Tokyo five years later at the games.

Open-water swimming has been an Olympic sport since 2008. Van Rouwendaal and the German swimmer Thomas Lurz (bronze in 2008 and silver in 2012) are the only swimmers who have won several medals in the sport at the games.

The Netherlands was already the most successful country in open water swimming at the Olympics, with titles for Maarten van der Weijden in 2008 and Ferry Weertman in 2016. No other country has supplied more than one Olympic champion in this sport, while the Netherlands has four of the nine in total.

It was the country’s tenth gold medal of the 2024 Olympics, putting it eighth on the list of most gold medals. The United States is top with 27 gold medals, followed by China with 25.