Mainstone Scores World Cup Win

WAIS open water swimmer Rhys Mainstone has won the third open water swimming World Cup of the year, taking out the 10km marathon event in Noumea last weekend.

The 25-year-old from Perth won the gruelling race in 1 hour 56 min 53.9 seconds, by two body lengths ahead of his nearest competitor Marc-Antoine Olivier of France who was second in 1:56:56.2.

Set in stunning New Caledonia, Mainstone took on the small but competitive field and overcame challenging conditions to win the race.

“I was very motivated to swim well in this event as it’s the only event in the Oceania region,” he said. “I’m very happy that FINA have put a series event close to home.

“My plan was to just sit in the pack and conserve energy but with swell conditions and wind direction getting worse I make a brave decision to break the field and use the conditions to my advantage early in the race going solo with 9.5km to swim.”

Mainstone said he felt the challenge of swimming out on his own but drew on his mental toughness to push through.

“It’s much harder to swim alone than within a pack of swimmers so the field was slowly gaining,” he said. “I managed to win with about two body lengths from the fast finishing French swimmer [Olivier].”

France’s Axel Reymond who won the last World Cup in Abu Dhabi, rounded out the medals for bronze in 1:57:24.4. Aussie Mickael Sheil was eighth in 2:05:45.6.

Six Australians will head to Mexico to contest the Cozumel World Cup at the start of May, with World Championships quota places on the line. Jarrod Poort, Simon Huitenga and George O’Brien will contest the men’s event while Mel Gorman, Chelsea Gubecka and Kareena Lee will take on the world’s best women. With just the top two Aussies then progressing onto the World Championships team, every stroke will count.

“I’ll be missing the next event in Mexico due to not making the cut at our Australian national trials in February,” Mainstone said. “But my series will start again in June in Hungry and will follow the rest of the races through Europe and Canada finishing in August with five events in two months.

The maximum points and the prize money will help the self-funded athlete reach his goal of the series title.

“With this win it should put me in good position with going towards my goal of taking the series for this year.”

-SwimmingAus