BUDAPEST — Ashley Twichell won the US swimming team's first gold medal of the Budapest World Championships on Wednesday with victory in the women's five km open water event. It was her first individual title in an event that has now been won by US swimmers in three successive World Championships.

France's Aurelie Muller, who defended her 2015 title in the 10km on Sunday, took silver and Brazil's Ana Marcela Cunha the bronze — her eighth World Championships open water medal.

Twichell, who won gold in the five km mixed team event in the 2011 championships and individual bronze, touched out in 59 minutes and seven seconds after swimming a tactical race and making a break at the start of the second lap at Lake Balaton.

Muller was 3.5 seconds slower. "We swam at a perfect pace, and I left the others at the right moment close to the end," said the American. My shoulder needed icing after the competition, but it had been injured before and I have had some problems with it for a couple of years."

American Haley Anderson, winner at the past two World Championships, finished fifth

On Tuesday, Matthieu Rosset and Laura Marino won the mixed 3-meter and 10-meter team event for France's first medal in any diving competition at a worlds.

"It's a great thing," said Rosset, who finished with a forward 2-1/2 somersaults 2 twists pike to snatch the gold from Mexico's Rommel Pacheco Marrufo and Viviana del Angel Peniche by 4.05 points.

"It's good to show the (French) federation that diving can bring medals," Marino said. "It's not just open water swimming — there is diving too!"

Mexico had been leading from the third round but there was no immediate disappointment from the silver medalists. "It's my seventh world championships and my second medal," Pacheco said. "I'm very happy."

Krysta Palmer and David Dinsmore of the United States claimed the bronze. The 25-year-old Palmer claimed a surprising medal in her first international meet.

Knee injuries forced her to switch from gymnastics and trampoline to diving at age 20, and she hopes it leads all the way to Tokyo in 2020. "It's always been (the goal to make) the Olympics," Palmer said. "To be in diving now and know this is only the beginning is really cool."

Scandal threatens FINA

on eve of world champs

Meanwhile, the swimming governing body FINA has been drawn into a financial scandal days before both their presidential elections and the start of the world championships here.

Kuwait's Husain Al Musallam, who is standing unopposed as FINA's first vice-president, has been caught up in a controversy for appearing to demand a 10 percent cut of potential sponsorship deals. In his role as general director of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), the 57-year-old is heard asking for 'commissions' on deals worth "40 to 50 million" dollars in a tape recording obtained by The Times and Germany's Speigel Online.

The exchange is said to be between a prospective Chinese marketing agent and Musallam, who suggested that 10 percent of any sponsorship deals arranged for the OCA should be separately channeled to him. Ahead of their elections in Budapest on Saturday and Sunday's start of swimming action at the World Championships in the Hungarian capital, FINA said none of their regulations had been breached.

"These allegations are a matter for OCA to comment on although FINA will monitor developments carefully," said FINA in a statement. "However, it was determined there was no case to answer based on the information that is available to FINA at this time. Moreover, there was no breach of any FINA regulations."

The OCA denied any wrong-doing on Musallam's part and questioned the timing of the articles. "The OCA firmly denies that OCA officials requested commissions for OCA sponsorship deals and confirms that no commission or money was paid to OCA officials, directly or indirectly, for OCA sponsorship deals," read the statement.

"All money for sponsorship deals went directly to the OCA. "The OCA is fully aware of the tape in question and its content and believes that this tape is being used in a politically motivated campaign ahead of the upcoming FINA elections scheduled for 22 July 2017."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) told The Times and Der Spiegel that it had passed the allegations to its chief ethics investigator. It is not the first time this year that Musallam has courted controversy.

In April, The Times revealed, he was effectively identified in a US Department of Justice indictment as a co-conspirator who allegedly paid bribes to a football official.

Paris could have Seine

swimming for 2024

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo opened a clean swimming zone in a city canal on Tuesday, calling it a step on the way to open water swim events in the city's Seine river in time for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Paris is in competition with Los Angeles to host the 2024 games. Hildalgo has repeatedly said she intends to see Olympic swimmers use the river that snakes around Notre Dame Cathedral and past the Eiffel Tower should Paris be victorious.

"This opens that door to open water swimming in Paris," Hidalgo said at the opening of the canal water pools, sectioned off and filtered in the Bassin de la Villette, a wide section of canal in the north of the city. "Thanks to the Olympic Games we'll be able to see to it that the water in the Seine is clean water."

A Triathlon open water swim was held in the Seine in 2011, but a competition scheduled for 2012 was abandoned partly because of health worries. Casual bathing in the Paris section of the Seine was outlawed in 1923 and swimmers are a rare sight, even on the hottest days of the year. — Agencies