Baker Battles to Creditable 16th in World Open Water Swim Champs
New Zealand’s Cara Baker has finished a creditable 16th place in a torrid 10km race on the opening day of the FINA Open Water World Championships in Canada today.
The Queensland-based kiwi finished a minute behind winner Martina Grimaldi (Italy) in her first outing at the world championships, staged at Lac-St-Jean in Roberval.
The 39-strong field battled over the four-lap course which proved extremely aggressive with five swimmers red carded for over-vigorous action including Australian champion Melissa Gorman, who had led at the 7.5km mark.
Baker survived the onslaught with a solid performance, tacking on to the lead bunch for the first half of the race and eventually finishing in 2:06.45, just behind early leader Ekaterina Seliverstova (RUS).
While it was not a race for the faint-hearted, nor did it give any favours to the pre-race favourites with Olympic gold medallist Larissa Ilchenko (RUS) failing to finish and world champion Keri-Anne Payne (GBR) back in seventh.
Grimaldi made a powerful sprint over the final 500m to edge out her compatriot Giorgia Consiglio with China’s Yangiao Fang a surprise third placegetter.
“Overall it was a really good effort from Cara,” Swimming New Zealand head coach Phillip Rush said. “It is only her third open water swim and the first time she has encountered just how physical it is at this level.
“Cara went in hoping she might get a top-10 which she is definitely capable of with some experience behind her. She was the third ranked Commonwealth swimmer behind two well performed Brits and she will be much better for this experience.
“It is going to be important for us to get our leading open water swimmers out on to the World Cup circuit if we are to develop our high performance programme towards the London Olympics and beyond.”
Rush said he expected Baker could go well in the 5km championship on Tuesday (NZ time).
Results:
FINA 10km Open Water World Championships, women:
Martina Grimaldi (ITA) 2:05.45, 1; Giorgia Consiglio (ITA) 2:05.57, 2; Yangiao Fang (CHN) 2:05.59, 3. Also: Cara Baker (NZL) 2:06.45, 16.