Swimming: Rough and tumble of start is only the beginning

Cara Baker has excelled in open water. Photo / Sarah Ivey

The start is where the real action is.

Swimmers tug on competitor's togs, kick out and some even hold others under the water. Even though the race might take two gruelling hours, with eagle-eyed marshalls looking out for over-aggressive competitors, it's all about getting a good racing position.

Cara Baker emerged from last year's 5km race at the open water world championships in Canada with a fat lip to go with her ninth placing. It was the first time the 20-year had competed at this level and she could scarcely believe her eyes.

"The start is the worst," she says with a breezy laugh belying the brutality of it. "Everyone is bashing each other trying to get in a good position because you have to go with the top group and hold on.

"Everyone is trying to obstruct others. It's quite hard when someone is trying to pull you under water or trying to drown you.

"It gets pretty rough."

Open water swimming is an entirely different beast to swimming in a pool. There are no lanes, no lines and no let-up.

Baker was a promising 800m swimmer - she missed out on the Beijing Olympics because of appendicitis - before joining her sister in an open water event for fun. She discovered she was quite talented and, less than 15 months later, is New Zealand's best hope of competing at the London Olympics in this event.

Yesterday she won the national open water championships in Taupo, which qualifies her for the Australian championships. She needs to finish in the top four there to qualify for the world championships in China and a top 10-finish in the longer 10km event will guarantee a start in London.

She finished ninth in the 5km race at last year's world championships and 17th in the 10km Olympic distance.

Her family moved to the Gold Coast from Palmerston North six years ago partly for Baker's swimming. She trains under Denis Cotterell, who coached Grant Hackett to two Olympic 1500m gold medals. She is relatively green and still has a lot to learn, on top of taking care of herself in the starts.

"The tactics are a lot different to swimming in the pool," she says. "You have to have more of a plan in a 10km race. If something happens in the 10km race that's unexpected, you have to have a back-up plan. There are also the feeding stations, so you have to learn about nutrition during a race.

"The atmosphere is also different. Everyone is a lot more relaxed. What happens in the water stays in the water. You come out and realise you've been bashing someone, look at them and say, 'sorry'."

Auckland's Philip Ryan won the men's race yesterday.