Swimming: Top competition for Olympic open water qualifier

Cara Baker. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Cara Baker and Kane Radford will have a number of top-rating Australians, led by world champion Melissa Gorman, to pull them along at this weekend's crucial Olympic open water swimming qualifier in Taupo.

The New Zealand open water 10km championship to be staged in Taupo on Saturday doubles as the qualifying event for the London Olympics, with the first two New Zealand swimmers in both men's and women's competition progressing to the June's final Olympic qualifying event in Portugal.

Baker and Radford are New Zealand's leading open water swimmers and expected to progress to the next round and they think the Australians will ensure the pace will be world class.

Leading the way is 2009 open water 5km world champion Gorman, who has already qualified for next year's Olympic Games with her fourth placing at last year's world championships.

The 26-year-old Queenslander made her debut across the Tasman in last month's New Zealand ocean swim event in Paihia, where she not only beat Baker, but also all the men in that event.

"For me, these races play a pretty big part in my preparations for London,'' Gorman said.

"My focus is primarily on training over the next six months, so these swims will provide the perfect opportunity for me to get in some good race practice.''

There's added incentive, with a $5000 winner-takes-all prize purse for both men's and women's winners, although Baker is not getting side-tracked in that respect.

"The first thing for me is to get the job done and get in the top two to get to Portugal,'' Baker said. "I don't want to have a race that is not competitive.

"What I am trying to learn and put into practice is how to race at a world-class level so I don't want it to be slow and tactical. That won't be the case with Melissa in the field.

"No doubt Melissa needs a 10km race and it will be part of her assessing her preparations. It is going to be a good strong race and obviously that's what we need as well. We need international swimmers to come over provide such good competition.''

Baker and fellow Queensland-based Kiwi Charlotte Webby will be favourites for the top spots among the New Zealanders, while Radford, who won the Australian 5km title last year, will battle with leading Kiwis Casey Glover (Wellington), Phillip Ryan (Auckland) and Stefan Talbot (Howick Pakuranga) in the men's race.

They will have plenty of competition in the form of Fina World Cup winner Trent Grimsey and fellow Australian Josh Richardson.

Most of the elite racers will also contest the 5km championship on Sunday.