Rio De Janeiro - Eight years after his last Olympics, Chad Ho put up a valiant fight for a medal in the men’s 10km Open Water at the Rio Games finishing 10th place just five seconds behind the winner.
Ho finished one position lower than in Beijing 2008 where he was the youngest in the field when he made his Olympic debut.
He was only two seconds behind the bronze-medal winner clocking 1:53:04.8 to bow out of his second Games with possibly more ahead.
“I wanted a top 10 even a medal but it just wasn’t enough on the day and I can’t ask for anything more,” Ho said.
“Conditions were ideal, not too flat not too rough and I felt good all the way. I sat with the pack, got my feed when I needed to and happy to have another Olympics done and dusted.”
Ho went through the first 2.5 kilometre in the 19th place just over a minute behind race leader at the time Jarrod Poort of Australia.
At the half-way mark Ho was almost a minute-and-a-half behind the leader before launching a gutsy fightback to finish in the top-10 thanks to a photo finish.
Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands proved to be the fastest of the chasers finishing the gruelling race in a time of 1:52:59.8.
The 26-year-old qualified by the skin of his teeth finishing 11th in a time of 1:52:31.60 which would not have been good enough to go the Games.
Ho became became the country’s first Open Water medal in Rome 2009 finishing third over the five-kilometre distance event the Fina World Championships.
Let year he powered his way to gold in the 5km Open Water event at the World Championships in Kazan, Russia. - Independent Media