World Championship silver medallist Cassie Patten will compete as part of a British Open Water Swimming squad this weekend in Spain at an event that has attracted arguably the world’s strongest field.

A British team of seven will contest the Seville leg of the FINA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup in the Guadalquiver River and, as the venue of next year’s qualifying event for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, anyone with Olympic aspirations will be there.

The event will provide swimmers and coaches with a valuable insight to a course that, in 12 months time, will ultimately determine those who will able to contest the first open water Olympic medals following the sport’s adoption onto the Olympic programme for 2008.

And Britain have real Olympic contenders in Patten (Stockport Metro), Alan Bircher (University of Bath) and Keri-Anne Payne (Stockport Metro) among others.

All competed at a tough World Championships in Melbourne this year where the quality of the field was buoyed by the Olympic opportunity Beijing will provide.

The sport is in transition with many pool-based swimmers moving into open water with an Olympic performance and the possibility of medals as the motivating factor.

This has seen the standard and competitiveness of open water swimming move forward rapidly but Britain, with Patten’s silver medal in the World Championship 10km, a strong performance from Payne in 11th and an eighth place finish for Bircher, are keeping pace and Head Coach Sean Kelly will be looking for this to continue in Spain.

“The venue will be home to the Olympic trials next year so we’ll see one of the best fields in the history of open water converge on Seville to take a look ahead of what will be their first chance to make an Olympic team,” said Kelly.

“Everyone involved in the sport from around the world is here. It’s going to give people an insight into what will be required next year and the field itself will be as high a quality as we saw at the World Championships in Melbourne this year.”

Kelly has been impressed with how his swimmers have trained this week ahead of the 10km events on Saturday.

“Everybody within the team has worked hard and enjoyed the week so far but the work really begins on Saturday,” said Kelly.

“They’ve trained as a group, mainly in the pool, and are very optimistic about the competition.
The river course is going to be pretty warm, around 25 Celsius, but it looks a good course, four laps of 2.5km, and they guys are certainly prepared for it.

“They haven’t rested for the event as this year is about preparing for a demanding 2008 and they’ve been doing about 8km a session in training but it will provide a great experience for the athletes as they’ll be back here in 12 months’ time at the World Championships where they can qualify for the Olympics in Beijing.”

The Seville event kick-starts a busy summer season for the open water swimmers and they’ll continue their development in London next week at the Festival of Open Water Swimming which comprises a weekend of international competition at the Royal Albert Docks in London from 16th to 17th June.

Over two days of competition, athletes will battle it out for titles in the FINA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup, LEN 5km Open Water Cup, British 10km Championships, British 5km Championships and the 3km Junior International.

Teams from Italy, South Africa, Argentina and Egypt will be in action at the Docks, while athletes from Russia, Australia and the USA have entered for the first time in the Festivals three-year history.

-ends-

The Seville leg of the FINA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup takes place on Saturday 9th June at the Guadalquiver River.

The British team comprises:
Alan Bircher (University of Bath)
Richard Charlesworth (Hatfield)
Rachel Jack (City of Leeds)
Alice McCall (Wigan BEST)
Simon Panting (Northampton)
Cassie Patten (Stockport Metro)
Keri-Anne Payne (Stockport Metro)

For further details contact Dave Richards, British Swimming Media Manager, on 01509 632237, 0778 992 6136 or email dave.richards@swimming.org