(Reuters) - Germany's Florian Wellbrock clinched gold in the men's 10km open water race, while Australia's Moesha Johnson secured the women's title at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on Wednesday, after both of the races were postponed because of poor water quality off Sentosa.
Wellbrock, 27, who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, claimed the men's title with a time of one hour, 59 minutes and 55.50 seconds, earning his seventh global gold in open water swimming.
"It was really tough today. I think it was the warmest waters that we've had to race in," Wellbrock said.
"I had one year to prepare for this. We did a lot of heat training and I think that was the key today to me taking the gold."
Italy's Gregorio Paltrinieri, a six-time world champion across pool and open water disciplines, finished 3.7 seconds behind Wellbrock to claim silver, marking his 17th career world championship medal.
"I knew Greg (Paltrinieri) was on my feet all the time. In the last lap, I saw it was Ollie (Klemet) and Greg on my back," Wellbrock said.
"It's so dangerous when they're so close, especially Greg - he always has such a great finish. I was really nervous and tried to push all the time."
Australia's Kyle Lee clinched bronze by edging Germany's Oliver Klemet by just 0.1 of a second to win his first individual world medal.
Johnson, who won open water silver at the Paris Olympics, bagged Australia's first gold medal at the Singapore championships with a time of two hours, seven minutes and 51.30 seconds.
The 27-year-old Australian swimmer finished 4.40 seconds ahead of second-placed Italian Ginevra Taddeucci, while Monaco's Lisa Pou took bronze.
The races were postponed because water quality readings exceeded acceptable thresholds.
(Reporting by Suramya Kaushik in Bengaluru, editing by Christian Radnedge and Pritha Sarkar)
