Ace Wairarapa swimmer Isaac Foote made a decent fist of his first-ever 5km race when he placed second in the 13-15yrs section at the New Zealand open water swimming championships held in Wellington last weekend. Foote, 15, normally competes over distances of up to 1500m in pool competition and his onlyspecific preparation for the 5km event was a brief dip at Riversdale Beach days beforehand, just before the southerly arrived! And things didn't work out well for him weather-wise on race day either, the strong northerlies forcing the organisers to move the course from Oriental Parade to a more sheltered 1km loop course off Hataitai Beach. Open water swimming has gained hugely in popularity in New Zealand since it was added to the Olympics event list in 2005 and it was part of the programme in Beijing last year. Foote, despite his novice status, handled the choppy Haitaitai Bay waters impressively, finishing second in the 13-15yrs section, hot on the tail of his more experienced New Zealand development programme team-mate, Mitchell Nairn, from Taupo. He completed the 5km in 1hr 7mins 45secs and officially recorded the same time as the third placegetter, Evan Wilson, of Hamilton. They had a titanic battle, with Foote finishing an arm's length ahead of Wilson, who had the benefit of drafting off him for much of the race. So it spoke volumes for Foote's tenacity that he was able to hold off Wilson's sprint at the end after having done the lion's share of the work. Swimming New Zealand open waters programmes manager Phillip Rush was impressed with the young talent in the men's field. He said the conditions were more testing than would be normally experienced in open water events and predicted a good future for New Zealand swimmers in that sphere of the sport. Foote, who late last year represented New Zealand with considerable credit at the 2008 Pacific School Games in Canberra, is preparing for the national age group championships to be held in Wellington's Kilbirnie pool in the first week of March.
