Swimming: Lake Taupo test for top open water swimmers

New Zealand swimmers Alannah Jury and Kane Radford will be the headline starters in their categories at Saturday's New Zealand open water championships in Taupo.

The national 10km and 5km championships are part of the inaugural Epic Swim Festival, which also includes the New Zealand Masters 2.5km open water title.

"It's an exciting addition to Swimming New Zealand's open water programme," national open water head coach Philip Rush said.

"Lake Taupo is an iconic landmark in this country and a brilliant venue for this event.

"At the top end it will provide a stern test for our leading open water swimmers as we plan towards the world championships and Pan Pacific championships later in the year.

"This is the first step in the process that we hope will realise real success at the 2012 Olympics in London."

Rush is expecting close and competitive swimming - but not world best times - this weekend in the championships, which form part of New Zealand's selection process for the major events this year.

"Most of the swimmers have come out of their big training camps and are in heavy workload right now. Our focus for them will be on working on good race strategies and getting some good racing competition."

Leading the way is Jury (North Shore), 18, who finished 13th in the 10km at the world championships in Italy last year.

She was runner-up in both the 5km and 10km on a choppy Wellington Harbour in her national open water debut but went on to perform superbly in Rome. She won the New South Wales 5km and 10km titles last month.

While Jury may be too classy in the 10km, the major local competition in the 5km race will come from Wellington's Georgia Hind (Capital), who won the 5km national title last year and was third in the New South Wales 5km event, and Charlotte Webby (Bell Block), a close second in NSW.

There is competition from across the Tasman from Australian age champions Jamie-Leigh Austin and Caitlin Zillman, both from Brisbane.

The men's race holds plenty of interest with the return of Radford (Swim Rotorua), now at Auckland's International Training Centre after a year in the US College programme.

He will find plenty of competition from the defending national champion in both distances, Auckland's Philip Ryan (Waterhole), his older brother Daniel and Wellington's Casey Glover (SwimZone), who was second behind Ryan in the NSW 10km event last month.

There will be interest in Dunedin's Bryn Murphy (Waves), a talented pool distance swimmer who has had success in the Sovereign Ocean Swim series this summer, while Nathan Capp (Greerton) has also impressed.

The Australian competition will come from national age medallist Joshua Richardson (Queensland), who was second in the 10km in NSW, and Josh Beard, who won the 16 years honours in the same event in the third-fastest time of the day.

- NZPA