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Winds force final to be suspended

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MELBOURNE, Australia -- High winds forced the suspension of the women's 25km open water final at the world championships in Melbourne on Saturday.

Organizers ordered the swimmers out of the water halfway through the race as the gusts, reaching up to 40 knots, whipped up the seas off St Kilda Beach.

The sport's world governing body FINA said the competitors would complete the final half of the race on Sunday.

"The swimmers will commence in a staggered start for the remaining 12.5km in accordance with the times they had after the initial five laps," FINA said.

Germany's Britta Kamrau-Corestein was leading the race when she was told the race had been stopped.

"I thought they should cancel the race," Kamrau-Corestein told reporters.

"The conditions were just so extreme. I have never experienced this before. The buoys were just swimming away and the boats were about to capsize."

Russia's Natalya Pankina, who was second when the race was stopped, said she had never encountered such conditions.

"The waves were unreal. I couldn't understand anything. I was being tossed back and forth, in every direction, couldn't tell which way, from the back, from the side," she said.

Third-placed Angela Maurer of Germany said the officials were right to suspend the race.

"These waves were inhuman. I'm happy they called off the race. I think I never would've finished because it was so wavy," she said.

Australian Shelley Clark said she was surprised when the race was called off.

"Honestly the first thing I thought was 'shark' ... I knew the conditions were bad but I didn't think bad enough to call off the race," she said.

Sixth gold

Russia won their sixth gold medal of the championships in synchronized swimming by winning the team free routine ahead of Spain and Japan.

Maria Gromova, Natalia Ischenko, Elviria Khasyanova, Olga Kuzhela, Anna Nasekina, Elena Ovtchinnikova, Svetlana Romashina and Anna Shorina scored 99 out of a possible 100 points to give Russia six of the seven synchronized swimming titles.

Russia's only defeat came in the solo free, won by Virginie Dedieu of France.

"How do all Russians celebrate? We will start today, wash off our makeup and go for it. We will celebrate in Moscow, everywhere," Kuzhela said.

"We will rest and then we'll party. We have been away for a month and have been counting down the hours.

"We are unbelievably tired. We could hardly move our legs though I'm sure you couldn't see that in the performance."

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