Great Britain’s Hector Pardoe thought he had “lost an eye” after taking an elbow to the face in the marathon swim, forcing him to pull out.
Pardoe was in a chasing pack on the last lap when he received the blow.
“I couldn’t see anything and thought my eye had fallen out in the water and I was going up to the lifeguard screaming ‘my eye, my eye, is it OK?'” said Pardoe.
The race was won by Germany’s Florian Wellbrock.
Pardoe, 20, said he “started to panic” when he could see he was behind and wasn’t going to finish in the top five.
But he managed to catch up with the group and give himself a hope of finishing inside the top 10 before pulling out.
“It’s fine, I’ve just got a big stitch they’ll sort in the village, but it’s bleeding everywhere,” he said.
He added that he wasn’t used to swimming in such warm water and described the event as “a brutal contact sport”.
