Spyros Gianniotis, of Greece, overhauled defending world champion Thomas Lurz, of Germany, on the closing stretch of the men's 10km marathon in Shanghai, this morning to lift his first world crown. The bronze went to Russia's Sergey Bolshakov. 

Gianniotis broke free of the shoal after the final turn and passed Lurz and Britain's Daniel Fogg on the way to victory in 1 hour, 54 minutes, 24.7 seconds, 2.5sec ahead of Lurz, who has now stockpiled three 10km titles, six 5km titles plus our silvers and two bronzes at world level.

The 31-year-old from Greece was delighted with the win after struggling with a right hand injury. Victory brought an end to a series of near misses, including bronze and silver over 5km in 2007 and 2009.

"I've trained several years for that. It feels good," he said. "It was very hard these last two months because I had an injury. I tried to never stop swimming and I did it."

Competitors wore high-tech tracking devices during the gruelling event to address safety concerns following the death of America's 2009 10km bronze medallist Fran Crippen during a FINA race off the UAE coast last year.

Fogg, meantime, had led for most of the race as he chased a top 10 finish that would have booked him a place at a home London 2012 Olympic Games.

It was not to be. In the scrum, he finished 15th. Bolshakov came home in1:54:31.8, with Vladimir Dyatchin on 1:54:38.7 for 9th to give Russia two Olympic berths. Also in that top 10: the man who spotted that teammate Fran Crippen was missing in that fateful 10km off the coast of the UAE last year, Alex Meyer (USA), Ky Hurst (AUS), Francisco Hervas (ESP), Brian Ryckeman (BEL), Julien Sauvage (FRA) and Andreas Waschburger, who gave Germany a second berth for 2012. Winner of the off-year world title in 2010,  Valerio Cleri (ITA) finished 11th and must fight again at an Olympic qualifier in Portugal next year.

The water temperature for the race at Jinshan City Beach outside Shanghai was 29.2 degrees Celsius (84.5 Fahrenheit), just below the newly recommended limit of 31 degrees Celsius (88 Fahrenheit) for open water competition.

Gianniotis said that the water temperature bothered him for the first half of the race, but he started to feel stronger toward the end. "The race for me was like hell to be honest," he said. "I was not feeling so good at five or six (kilometres). I picked up my pace and at about 9K I felt really good and I said, 'I make my move now.' I was hoping I had a bit more than Thomas."

Meyer, meanwhile,  said that his thoughts during the race were with Crippen, who died in a FINA 10km World Cup event in dreadful conditions under a hot midday sun off the coast of the United Arab Emirates last October. It was Meyer who raised the alert when he noticed that his teammate was missing. Meyer joined in the search and now carries a photograph of himself holding a picture of Crippen to the start of every race.

"My main goal coming here was to make the Olympic team," he said. "It's kind of a bittersweet moment because Fran's not here. That was a dream we shared to go to the Olympics together and it's not going to happen now."

FINA instituted a major overhaul of safety procedures in open water swimming in the wake of a critical report into the death of Crippen. Organisers in Shanghai are using a high-tech sonar system to quickly locate any swimmer who slips out of sight below the surface. 

FINA invested $300,000 in two sonar units, now in use for the first time. They sweep the course every 20 seconds to alert rescue boats if any competitor falls below a certain depth.

Dennis Miller, FINA liaison official for open water swimming now at at the time of Crippen's death, told AFP that the new technology is "not compulsory, but it's something we thought was a safety concern. We thought we needed to do something new". Perhaps it ought to be compulsory, some suggest.

Swimmers have welcomed the move. "If something happens and a swimmer goes down, they can find him immediately," said Stefan Lurz, Germany's open water head coach and brother to multiple world champion and silver medallist today, Thomas. There are also more officials watching the competitors, with four referee boats and 12 lifeguard boats, he noted.

Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada's CEO and head coach, joined the chorus: "We need to get to the point where we maybe have a beeper like an avalanche (beacon) or GPS, but it's really hard in the water. We need to keep improving the technology here. The key importance is making sure that we have the safety procedures to make sure that if athletes get into trouble, there's a quick response."

One of the remaining issues in open water is among the most serious: few in swimming believe a max temperature for the water of 31C is sensible. If a few degrees less than that is what is deemed acceptable for pool swimmers racing just 50m, then how is it deemed reasonable to have 10km and 25km athletes racing at formidable speed in waters more suited to the baby pool at the local leisure centre.

In other action in Shanghai: 

Diving results:

Men 3m Springboard Synchro Final: 1 Kai Qin & Yutong Luo (Chn) 463.98pts, 2 Ilya Zakharov & Evgeny Kuznetzov (Rus) 451.89, 3 Yahel Castillo & Julian Sanchez (Mex) 437.61.

Women 1m Springboard Final: 1 Tingmao Shi (Chn) 318.65pts, 2 Han Wang (Chn) 310.20, 3 Tania Cagnotto (Ita) 295.45.