The 5th FINA World Open Water Swimming Championships were held May 3–8, 2008 in Seville, Spain.^[1] The races were held on a 2.5-kilometer loop-course in the Guadalquivir river in the city center.

A total of 165 swimmers (81 females, 84 males) were entered into the 6 races at the 2008 Open Water Worlds:^[1]

• Saturday, May 3: women's 10K
• Sunday, May 4: men's 10K
• Tuesday, May 6: women's 5K, men's 5K
• Thursday, May 8: women's 25K, men's 25K

2008 FINA Open Water Worlds
5 km	men	women
10 km	men	women
25 km	men	women
v t e

The 10K races served as the initial qualifier for the 10K race at the 2008 Olympics.

Results

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
Women's 5K   details	Larisa Ilchenko   Russia	1:00:04.6	Ekaterina Seliverstova   Russia	1:00:07.8	Chloe Sutton   USA	1:00:09.9
Men's 5K   details	Thomas Lurz   Germany	54:57.3	Vladimir Dyatchin   Russia	54:58.8	Maarten van der Weijden   Netherlands	54:59.8
Women's 10K   details	Larisa Ilchenko   Russia	2:02:02.7	Cassandra Patten   Great Britain	2:02:05.8	Yurema Requena   Spain	2:02:07.2
Men's 10K   details	Vladimir Dyatchin   Russia	1:53:21.0	David Davies   Great Britain	1:53:21.3	Thomas Lurz   Germany	1:53:27.2
Women's 25K   details	Ksenia Popova   Russia	5:27:48.2	Edith van Dijk   Netherlands	5:27:50.3	Natalya Pankina   Russia	5:27:53.9
Men's 25K   details	Maarten van der Weijden   Netherlands	5:04:01.1	Mark Warkentin   USA	5:04:01.6	Yuri Kudinov   Russia	5:04:02.4

Team standings

The Championship Trophy point standing for the 2008 Open Water Worlds is:^[2]

Rank	Nation	Men	Women	Combined
1	Russia	63	84	147
2	Netherlands	48	30	78
3	Germany	42	14	56
4	USA	34	14	48
5	Spain	15	24	39
6	Australia	17	21	38
7	Great Britain	16	21	37
8	Czech Republic	3	21	24
9	Italy	15	6	21
10	France	2	16	18
11	Egypt	16	0	16
12	China	0	14	14
13	South Africa	0	12	12
13	Bulgaria	12	0	12
15	Brazil	0	11	11
16	Slovenia	0	8	8
17	Greece	4	0	4
17	Israel	4	0	4
19	Canada	3	0	3
19	Belgium	3	0	3
21	Sweden	0	1	1

The following 17 countries are listed in a tie for 22nd, with zero (0) points: