Matt Scott's great start

Matt Scott comes home in 11th place in the men's 10km open water swim at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Tokyo this week. He is pictured winning the Harbour Crossing 2.9-kilometre race in the seven-race NZ Ocean Swim Series last year. File picture

GISBORNE’S Matt Scott made a successful start to his defence of the New Zealand Ocean Swim series open title at the weekend.

Scott won the opening race of the seven-race NZ Ocean Swim Series — the Harbour Crossing in Auckland.

The 20-year-old completed the 2.9-kilometre distance across the Auckland harbour in 36 minutes 17 seconds to repeat his victory at last year’s race.

He was seven seconds ahead of Auckland teenager Jackson Dawson, who won the 15 to 19 years division.

Auckland-based distance specialist Scott swims for Gisborne’s Enterprise Cars Swim Team and is a member of the New Zealand high performance squad.

He won the 2016-2017 NZ Ocean Swim Series with victory in the final race — the King of the Bays — in April.

“It was a good way to start this season’s series, winning the first race,” said Scott, who has just finished his first year of studying construction management through.

“The best three results in the series are the ones that count (to the overall total) and I’m keen to defend my overall title.”

He is also looking further afield.

“The goal is the Pan Pac 20km race in Japan towards the end of 2018.

“Swimming in the national series here is all part of the preparation for that.

“Swimming 20km is a lot different but it’s good to get these swims in, as well as my pool training.”

To qualify for the Pan Pac champs, Scott must finish in the top six at the Australian national open water champs at Adelaide in January.

Scott was 19th at the Aussie champs in January this year.

“I learned a lot from that race,” he said. “I was out the front with two and a half kilometres to go when I got caught by the pack, and got dropped.

“In the shorter distances you can just go hard out all the way but in the 20km races it is more tactical.

“I didn’t plan as well as I should have for that. There are feeding stations at every two and a half kilometres, poles for each swimmer with their water bottles attached.

“I though I was doing Ok not feeding as much as the other swimmers but got caught out in the end when they all passed me.

“I won’t make that mistake again.”

As a member of the NZ high performance squad aiming at selection for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games, Scott and 14 other NZ swimmers, attended a training camp in Flagstaff, Arizona in April.

“We were in the States for just under a month. with two weeks spent at high altitude training at a university in Flagstaff, which was a cool experience, 2000 metres above sea level.

“It was way hard swimming at that altitude but a great experience.”