Swimming: Kane Radford swims to open water glory

Kane Radford (right) and Japan's Yasunari Hirai in action in yesterday's 5km open water race in Taupo. Photo/BW Photography

Rotorua swimmer Kane Radford has won his second Oceania and national titles at the State New Zealand Open Water Championships in Taupo.

Radford, who comfortably won the 10km on Saturday, had a tight battle in yesterday's 5km race before out-touching the Japanese open water champion Yasunari Hirai for the victory.

The Japan swimmer made the first lunge at the finish board but missed, allowing Radford to make the winning touch and the take title.

The pair both train together in the crack open water squad at Uniswim in Western Australia.

Another of the Uniswim group, young Australian Sacha Downing also earned the double after winning the women's 5km event. Downing swam away from the pack to comfortably win ahead of fellow Australian Leah Cutting and State AquaBlack Emma Robinson (Capital).

Radford was ecstatic the 5km race went exactly to plan.

"It played out exactly how I wanted it to," Radford said. "I sat at the back of the pack for the first lap and then Yasu took off on that second lap. I manoeuvred my way through the pack to get on to his feet. And then I just really waited until the last 300m where me and Yasu had a really tight finish and I just happened to time my finish correctly," Radford said.

His double win has given him confidence.

"To be able to back up day after day it shows I'm quite fit at the moment and in good stead for the rest of the year."

His newly adopted Western Australian training plan appears to be paying off.

"We have a lot of open water swimmers in the squad so we are definitely specialising in the open water. We work on things that pool swimmers don't work on as much. We do quite a bit of pack swimming in the pool and get used to that," Radford said.

The New Zealand Championship silver medal went to Michael Mincham in a time of 58:34.38 in a close finish with bronze medal winner Phillip Ryan.

The minor placings in the Oceania Championship were awarded to Australian Ridge Grimsey in second and Phillip Ryan in third.

In the women's field, it was Australian young gun Downing who made it two from two with a decisive victory, comfortably winning by 10 seconds. With Downing ineligible to win the Oceania Championship, the title was taken by Cutting who finished four seconds ahead of Charlotte Webby.

The New Zealand Championship race was won by 19-year-old national representative Emma Robinson in 1:04:44. Yesterday's 10km winner Grace Somerville won silver and Webby claimed bronze.