POOL GIRL PATTEN WINS FIRST EURO TITLE
Plymouth Leander's Cassandra Patten made a seamless transition
from the pool to open water with a spectacular performance
in the London leg of the 10k LEN Cup at the Royal Albert Docks.
The 19-year-old, competing at her first British Open Water
Championship and only second senior European open water competition,
fought well in a field packed with seasoned open water athletes.
Patten, who is more accustomed to shorter distances in the
pool and has represented Britain at both the World and European
Short Course Championships, first competed in open water just
last week but used her experience to good affect in London
today.
Part of the leading group from the start, Patten sat comfortably
in sixth and seventh position for nine of the 10 kilometres,
before taking the lead on the 1,000m turning buoy. Benefiting
from a strong stroke thanks to her pool background, she forged
a length-long lead, which she managed to hold onto to the
finish line to take gold in 2 hours 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
Patten was delighted with her performance, which saw her
top the podium for her first time in senior competition.
"With my pool background I thought I was probably the
fastest 400m swimmer there and that spurred me on the final
straight," she explained. "This was only my second
open water competition so I'm delighted to win."
"My first meet was the World Cup in Seville last week,
which I swam pretty much on my own. I had no idea about tactics
and it was hard.
"But I learnt from that and today I knew to keep with
the pack and work off the other swimmers. It felt really good
out there - this morning I didn't even know if I was going
to swim because of a shoulder niggle, but I was encouraged
to get in and see what I could do.
"The first two-and-a-half kilometres were the hardest,
but the middle of the race felt really good and I built on
that and just went for it on the final 1,000m. The water was
the perfect temperature today. I'm a Cornish girl and I'm
always in the sea so cold water doesn't bother me."
Next week, Patten moves from Plymouth Leander to train in
Stockport with distance swimmer Keri-Anne Payne under coach
Sean Kelly. She plans to continue to compete in both pool
and open water events and build on the progress she's made
in the first half of this year.
"I'm really enjoying being able to combine pool and
open water swimming at the moment and I'm reaping the benefits
in competition," she said. "I spent three weeks
altitude training in South Africa with Sean and Keri-Anne
earlier this year where I won bronze in the Midmar Mile.
"I've been working off that base and I've got a lot
more confidence in my distance swimming, which helped at the
Mare Nostrum earlier this month where I won bronze in the
800m Freestyle and posted a world top 20 time.
"I'm planning on competing in the pool and open water
at the European Championships next month as I don't want to
focus on one discipline just yet, but I know I'll have to
choose in the future. For the time being I'm looking forward
to moving to Stockport and improving my swimming even more."
In the LEN competition, Bath-based German swimmer Stefanie
Biller touched a length behind Patten in 2h6m22 for silver
and Esther Nunez of Spain won bronze in 2h6m29.
British open water stalwart Paula Wood, who recently came
out of retirement with the aim of qualifying for Beijing,
had a sprint finish to touch home for fifth position. The
Ealing swimmer looked set for the perfect comeback after leading
the field for the first 9k. But a period out of the pool took
its toll on the 27-year-old who was pressured by the Germans
and was unable to find the fuel for the final straight and
finished in 2h7m06.
Although not enough for a LEN medal, Wood's time earned her
British Championship silver ahead of City of Glasgow's Sinead
Doherty who won bronze in 2h15m01.
In the men's events, David Proud was named British Champion
after completing the 10k in 2h1m1, but was disappointed with
his performance after hoping to challenge for European honours.
"I'm not very pleased with that performance," he
admitted. "I've been doing a lot of speed work recently
which I don't think I'm suited to. I had a poor swim last
week in Seville too so I'll need to have a look at my training.
"I went out hard today for the first 2k but I couldn't
get up with the leading pack so got stuck in the second group.
I put in a good sprint at the end for sixth position, but
my fitness isn't really there at the moment. I'm training
in Bath this summer with Alan [Bircher] so I hope to start
to get things sorted then."
City of Glasgow duo Jamie Forrest and James Leitch took the
remaining British podium spots with silver and bronze in 2h1m12
and 2h7m36 respectively.
In the men's LEN Open Water Cup Germany's Alexander Studzinski
stole a race dominated by the Spaniards on the final sprint,
finishing in 1h57m25. Spain's Franco Jose Heruas won silver
in 1h57m26 and Rostislav Vitek of the Czech Republic took
bronze in 1h57m30.
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