Open water gold to Scott at Oceania champs

File picture of Matt Scott by Paul Rickard

A “super stoked” Matt Scott ended his Oceania championships campaign on a high with victory in the 5-kilometre open water race in Fiji at the weekend.

Enterprise Cars Swim Team member Scott won the title in a thrilling sprint photo finish with Australian Lachlan Colquhoun.

Scott just missed out on the medals in the 10km open water event at the start of the champs, finishing fourth. He learned a lot from that performance and nailed the finish in the 5km race to win in a time of 1 hour 1 minute 29.20 seconds.

Colquhoun was just 0.3secs behind after the pair cleared away from the field, then engaged in a sprint battle for gold.

“I’m buzzing, super stoked,” Scott said. “I had a way better race than the 10k and finally figured out how to sprint.”

Scott’s gold brought the week-long championships, involving nine nations, to a close. New Zealand topped the medal table with 51 medals, including 24 gold, with Australia second on 43, including 16 gold.

Scott, a member of the Swimming NZ Tokyo 2020 Squad, is back in international action this week but in a different cap. He is a member of the New Zealand surf lifesaving team competing at the Sanyo Cup in Japan on July 2-3.

Fellow Midway club member Olivia Corrin and Waikanae’s Casey Fyall are also in the team.