Triumph puts seal on trip home

A victory in the Russell to Pahia open water swim capped off a perfect homecoming for Australian champion Kate Brookes-Peterson, less than 20km from where she was born.
The women's defending champion in the Sovereign New Zealand Ocean Swim Series was born in Kawkawa but hasn't found any reason to venture this far north since she moved to Australia as a youngster - until Saturday, that is.
"We drove through Kawakawa on the way here and I thought, this was where I was born, it was really cool," she said.
The inaugural Russell to Pahia swim allowed her to stay with her dad in Whangarei. The pair did some reminiscing while driving up in the morning for the swim.
The 25-year-old got over a rocky start to comfortably win the women's race at the inaugural 3.3km Russell to Pahia race with Dunedin swimmer Bryn Murphy taking line honours to stamp his mark firmly on men's series.
"It was actually a lot tougher than what I thought it was going to be, it doesn't look too rough but when you're swimming out there it feels quite choppy," Brookes-Peterson said.
"I had a terrible start, I thought I might try and stay away from everyone so I didn't get smashed and it kind of backfired because all the fast swimmers took off in a group together and I kind of got left behind so that's a lesson for my next swim."
She completed the race in 43 minutes 34 seconds, a minute and 10 seconds clear of Wellington's Georgia Hind with Auckland's Brenda Russell another 20 seconds behind her in third.
Brookes-Peterson is the 2008 Australian 5km and 10km open water champion so the 3.3km swim was at the shorter end of her comfort zone.
"I just started warming up towards the end of the race," she deadpanned.
She needs to win two more races to be certain of defending her 2009 title. The next event in the series is the Capital Classic in Wellington on January 30. 
A field of close to 600 swimmers took to the water at Russell in great conditions but a tailwind strengthened  after they started causing the water to get rougher, Bryn Murphy said.
"It was relatively flat for the first part but it got a bit choppy towards the end ... and I suppose you have to alter your stroke a little but compared to the harbour crossing a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't too bad," the 23-year-old said.
Murphy is now within one win of taking this year's series after winning the harbour crossing.
"It's taken on your top three events for the overall series so I still have to pull out a third performance but I'm definitely happy with two from two ," he said.
Murphy and the New Zealand 10km champion Philip Ryan made a break on the other leading swimmers around the halfway mark. Auckland's Ryan was a threat to Murphy's double after winning the U20 5km and 10km double at the New South Wales open water swim championships in Sydney last weekend.
"I tried getting on his feet and then pushing on him a bit but he just pushed away again and then I died basically," the 19-year-old said.