The men's marathon swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro took place on 16 August at Fort Copacabana, over a distance of 10 kilometres.

A photo finish saw Spyridon Gianniotis of Greece narrowly loses to dutchman Ferry Weertman for the gold, with both record time of 1:52:59.8 and 1:53:00.5.

In the final race of his career, Gianniotis, who was also the oldest competitor at the age of 36, won the first medal for Greece in swimming since the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Burnell was subsequently disqualified for a second yellow card for a tussle with defending champion Oussama Mellouli just before the line.

[1] The men's 10 km open water marathon at the 2016 Olympics featured a field of 25 swimmers:[2] Unlike all of the other swimming events in the pool, the men's and women's marathon 10 kilometre races are held in open water.