American teenager Chloe Sutton led a squad of 29 in the women's event at the marathon swimming Olympic qualifying tournament held in Beijing on Saturday, holding one of the 25 berths in the Olympic open water race.

Sutton, 16, pushed herself forward right after jumping into the water Saturday morning at Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park, confirming her leading position with expanding advantage before finishing the 10km race first in two hours and 48.5 seconds.

"Even in the final lap, I wasn't thinking where I was but still tried to swim as fast as I can, " said Sutton who took the bronze in the 5km event at the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships in Sevilla, Spain one month ago.

"It's overwhelmingly wonderful," added Sutton, who will race in both the pool and open water at the Beijing Olympic Games this August.

Italian duo Martina Grimaldi and Alice Franco took the second and third places in 2:01:19.7 and 2:01:36.5 respectively, but were in totally different mood.

Although there were 11 berths to be distributed in the event after the other 14 having been confirmed at the World Open Water Swimming Championships, bronze medallist Franco still failed to qualify for the Olympics since each team will qualify only one athlete per event from this tournament.

"I'm happy for Martina, but I'm sad for myself," said Franco. "I 've been training for the Olympics for a long time."

The seventh finisher Alejandra Gonzalez from Mexico and the 11th Nika Kozamernik from Slovenia suffered the same misery as Franco for lagging behind their teammates.

A squad of 25 including the top ten swimmers at this year's World Open Water Swimming Championships grasped the opportunities to taste the Olympic debut of marathon swimming in Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2008)