Australian Open Water Championships: Grant Hackett Wins 10K, Keeps Moving Towards Beijing

SYDNEY, Australia, December 7. WORLD record holder Grant Hackett has taken a major step towards glory at next year's Beijing Olympics by taking out the 10K Australian Open Water Swimming Championships at the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith, Sydney.

Hackett showed his class to pull away from a pack that still stood at 12 swimmers with just 2.5km to go to clock 1hr 54mins 39 seconds and defeat best mate and former training partner Ky Hurst by four and a half seconds with Athens Olympic 400m individual medley finalist Travis Nederpelt a further six seconds back.

Hackett and Hurst will now represent the Telstra Dolphins at the FINA World Open Water Championships in Seville next May where they will have to finish inside the top 10 to qualify for a berth at the Beijing Games.

Afterwards the triple Olympic gold medalist spoke of his pre-race nerves but said he always knew he had done the work in the training pool, even if he hadn't rested for the grueling event.

"I was a little bit nervous, I haven't tapered because my main focus for the first half of this season is March (Telstra Australian Championships – Selection Trials for the Beijing 2008 Australian Olympic Team), so I'm gearing everything towards that and so yes there's a little bit of concern, you wonder whether you're going to get through 10k's when you're not totally fresh," Hackett said. "But I knew I'd done the work so I just had to go in there and keep my confidence and stay cool throughout the race to conserve energy."

Hackett followed that plan to the letter with the race playing into his hands perfectly, the 198cm powerhouse hitting the lead with 1100m to go and dragging a courageous Hurst past Nederpelt and towards a Beijing Olympic dream.

Almost 25 out of the 35 starters had been in the lead pack at the 2.5km mark, 14 at the halfway point and twelve with a circuit to go.

At that point Nederpelt upped the ante and ultimately it might have been his downfall as Hackett sat in second stalking with Hurst sitting on his feet, using all the experience he has built up in surf life saving and an open water career that began with silver in the 5km as a teenager at the 1998 FINA World Championships in Perth.

Before the race many pundits had suggested open water specialists Brendan Capell, Josh Santacaterina and David Browne would need to break away early to have any chance of winning but later Hackett said he thought the race would play out like it did.

"I think my endurance is pretty good and I know I can keep with their pace so if anyone went too fast they'd probably die a little bit and given the quality of the field I think the pack would probably run an individual down if they went at the four or five kilometer mark," Hackett said. "I think everyone knew they had to play their cards right and just hope they felt good in the last one to two kilometers."

Hackett said he was over the moon that Hurst would be joining him in Seville and hoped the pair could help each other all the way to the Olympic medal dais:

"I could see when I came around that last buoy down the other end when I started to pick up the pace that Ky was on my feet and I could feel him tapping away there and it was good to see him doing well. He's been a great friend of mine, we grew up together and been best mates for a long time so to see him get up there and get one of the top two positions and now we're off to Seville is great. We will work together and work together at the World Championships and hopefully at the Olympics."

Like Hackett, Hurst said the race had gone according to his plan too:

"That race really went to plan, I sort of stuck with Grant the whole way and we sort of swam together for all of it. It was probably a bigger pack than I thought there'd be. There were a lot of unfamiliar faces up in that pack but at the end of the day Travis, in that last lap, took off and ended up splitting up the pack and I think that was exactly what we needed. Then Grant ended up going around (Travis) and I ended up following and come that last straight I just tried to hang on as long as I could. There were a couple of times where I tried to get around Grant but it's Grant Hackett and he's not the easiest man to swim around. I tried a couple of times but he was too quick and had too much pace. I'm extremely happy with what I've just done, my goal with Tracey (coach, Menzies) was to come here and prepare enough to get through today and I think I was and now I've got a few more levels I think with my swimming come Seville and I want make sure I'm ready to place in that top ten and hopefully get a medal and then obviously go to Beijing."

In the end, Hurst aside, the traditional open water swimmers like Capell, Santacaterina and Browne just could not hold onto the pace of Hackett, and initially Nederpelt.

Capell was fourth, 18 seconds behind Nederpelt with a further 14 seconds to Santacaterina and another 26 seconds to Browne.

Special thanks to David Lyall of Swimming Australia for contributing this report.

Men's Results
Name Age Team Finals Time
1 HACKETT, GRANT 27 MELBOURNE VICENTRE, VIC 1:54:39.95
2 HURST, KY, (NSWIS) 26 SLC AQUADOT, NSW 1:54:44.50
3 NEDERPELT, TRAVIS 22 CITY OF PERTH 1:54:50.89
4 CAPELL, BRENDAN 23 ST PETERS WESTERN SWIM CLUB 1:55:08.39
5 SANTACATERINA, JOSH 27 ST PETERS WESTERN SWIM CLUB 1:55:22.89
6 BROWNE, DAVID 20 ST PETERS WESTERN SWIM CLUB 1:55:48.10
7 COLLIS, BLAKE 16 GARDENS, QLD 1:56:48.09
8 CUTHBERT, NICOLAS 23 CITY OF PERTH 1:56:54.99
9 O'BRIEN, GEORGE 15 BRISBANE GRAMMAR, QLD 1:57:23.10
10 HARRIS, THOMAS 18 GUNNEDAH, NSW 1:57:23.73
11 COX, DAVID 24 CENTRAL AQUATIC 1:58:08.26
12 FERSZT, RHYS 18 PALM BEACH CURRUMBIN 1:58:26.74
13 SHEPPARD, SAM 16 NUNAWADING, VIC 1:58:41.31
14 KAPLAN, TUNC 16 CARLILE, NSW 1:58:47.07
15 MAINSTONE, RHYS 17 CITY OF PERTH 1:59:41.68
16 GRIMSEY, TRENT 19 ALBANY CREEK, QLD 1:59:54.19
17 LAWFORD, JARRAD 17 CITY OF PERTH 2:02:36.43
18 SCHMIDT, RILEY 19 ALBURY, NSW 2:03:10.66
19 CARRIGAN, KIERAN 22 BRISBANE GRAMMAR, QLD 2:03:55.35
20 JACKSON, SCOTT 17 CRONULLA, NSW 2:06:45.55
21 RAYSON, IAN 19 TITANS, NSW 2:07:06.55
22 THORN, MAX 15 SURREY PARK, VIC 2:07:17.34
23 ANANIEVSKI, ANDREW 16 UNATTACHED, VICTORIA 2:07:21.03
24 FENN, MICHAEL 19 WIZARDS, NSW 2:07:35.80
25 SCHIFFLER, LUKE 16 EPPING BULLETS, NSW 2:07:37.20
26 WILLIAMS, GENE 14 WEST COAST SWIMMING CLUB 2:08:14.00
27 THOMPSON, PETER 42 H2O, VIC 2:10:44.12
28 SKRODZKI, MICHAL 21 YARRA PLENTY, VIC 2:10:53.49
29 MACFARLAN, JAMES 15 WEST COAST SWIMMING CLUB 2:10:58.97
30 HALSON, MAX 15 SURREY PARK, VIC 2:16:51.91
31 ZILM, IAN 16 BALLINA INDOOR, NSW 2:17:13.58
32 SCHUBERT, SAMUEL 15 GUNNEDAH, NSW 2:18:29.74
33 JONES, CRAIG 44 UNLEY, SA 2:24:43.30 OTL
— CAHILL, JAMES 16 WARRINGAH AQUATIC, NSW DNF

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