Keri-Anne Payne Travels To Win 8th aQuellé Midmar Mile
Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Photos courtesy of Jaco Tredoux and Andrew Martens of Helicam Productions. Photo of Keri-Anne Payne courtesy of Jetline Action Photo/Gameplan Media.
This Olympic quadrennial is finally heating up for 2008 Olympic silver medalist Keri-Anne Payne.
While bearing with a brutal travel schedule between Great Britain, Australia and South Africa, Payne faced the world’s best at the Swim the Swam in Perth and some of America’s fastest swimmers at the aQuellé Midmar Mile in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal.
Her timing, as usual, is spot on as she was re-emerged as one of the world’s top 3 open water swimmers.
After barely losing the top podium spot at the Swim the Swan to rival Sharon van Rouwendaal, she absolutely dominated today’s aQuellé Midmar Mile for her eighth overall victory in the famous mile event.
Meanwhile, a frustrating year for American Ashley Twichell seems to be coming to an end. She did not qualify for the USA Swimming national team as she has in previous years and had to sit on the sidelines nursing a bum shoulder and bearing with surgery. But, like Payne, the fire inside never was extinguished. Both women kept up the faith and their training intensity in the belief that they both would return to the highest echelon of the sport.
But all smiles before the race in a relaxed atmosphere, the women looked their normal strong selves with intense seriousness augmented by a high arm turnover, soft kick and straight-as-an-arrow swimming during the race.
Dubbed the Queen of Midmar, Payne took early control of the race and opened up a 30m lead by the first hot spot at the 400m mark. By the 800m hot spot, she extended her lead to 50m and by the 1200m hot spot her lead had grown to close to 70m.
“The hard work is paying off. What a great start to the year. I had no idea where the other swimmers were during the race and decided to go out hard from the start. I am very happy with my swim and the way things went today,” said Payne after the race.
Results of the 2015 aQuellé Midmar Mile:
ELITE OPEN
1 Keri-Anne Payne 17:35
2 Ashley Twichell 18:05
3 Stephanie Peacock 18:06
4 Holly Hibbott 18:10
5 Michelle Weber 18:12
6 Rene Warnes 18:20
7 Clarice Le Roux 18:26
8 Megan Van Wyk 19:01
9 Charlise Oberholzer 19:06
10 Madeleine Crompton 19:08
GIRLS U13
1 Tracy-Lea Meyer 19:41
2 Zoe Frank 21:56
3 Kyla Blakemore 22:15
4 Ally Chislett 22:36
5 Tamryn Mckie 22:39
WOMEN 31-40
1 Michelle Vlasakova 20:49
2 Sheona Lottering 21:44
3 Mandy Loots 22:18
WOMEN 41-50
1 Dominique Donner 22:02
2 Megan Albertyn 22:47
3 Barbara Bowley 23:04
WOMEN 51-60
1 Rita Townsend 24:26
2 Gail Bristow 24:56
3 Carol Mason 25:05
WOMEN 61-70
1 Marissa Rollnick 28:02
2 Jenny Ireland 30:25
3 Bev Shuttleworth 30:53
WOMEN 71+
1 Beth Lordan 33:12
2 Ann Hanson 41:56
Copyright © 2015 by World Open Water Swimming Association
