IRVINE - U.S. swimmers Chip Peterson and Christine Jennings won the the 10km marathon swimming races at the Pan Pacific champioships at Long Beach Marine Stadium yesterday.

Peterson crossed the line in one hour 56 minutes to edge fellow-countryman Frances Crippen by almost two seconds for the gold medal.

Richard Weinberger of Canada was third, 0.24s back.

In the women’s contest, Christine Jennings sprinted in the closing metres and finished first in two hours and 33 seconds.

Her teammate, Eva Fabian, earned the silver 2 seconds behind. U.S. team members Emily Brunemann and Haley Anderson were the next to touch [2:00:37.866 and 2:00:40.975 respectively] but Pan Pacific rules bar any country from having more than two swimmers on the podium, thus Melissa Gorman of Australia, gold medallist in the 1500m free, earned the bronze.

Following are the leading results:

MEN
1. PETERSON, Chip (USA) 1h56:00.020
2. CRIPPEN, Frances (USA) 1:56:02.744
3. WEINBERGER, Richard (CAN) 1h56:02.984

WOMEN
1. JENNINGS, Christine (USA) 2h00:33.834
2. FABIAN, Eva (USA) 2h00:35.759
3. GORMAN, Melissa (AUS) 2h00:56.579