London 2012 Olympics: Open-water champion Keri-Anne Payne avoids pain by leading entire race

?They swum all over him,? said a team-mate. ?It was vicious.?

If Hackett was a target that day, surely Payne will be in the same position at London 2012? Having missed out on gold in Beijing, where Russia?s Larissa Ilchenko overtook her with a late burst of speed, she has since cemented her place at the top of the 10km standings by winning the 2009 and 2011 world championships.

But before anybody can nobble Payne, they will have to catch her. She is so quick off the blocks that she has usually stolen the lead after half-a-dozen strokes.

?If people are fast enough, then fair play to them,? she says with a confident smile. ?They know they will have to put on a fairly spectacular swim to keep up with me from the start.? Payne has broad shoulders but slim arms, and striking looks that have earned her a role as the face of Max Factor?s waterproof mascara.

She is filling her downtime with a media training course at the London School of Journalism, and it is easy to see her heading down the Sharron Davies road of photogenic ex-swimmers once her career in the water finishes.

She considers herself a girlie girl, a lover of handbags, make-up and desserts. But she also admits that ?to be an open-water swimmer you have to have a certain amount of ?hard? to you.

"So many things are thrown at us, you need to be the ruthless one, and if that means swimming through jellyfish [as she once did off the Melbourne coast] or past dead animals [in a polluted Chinese river], you just have to get on with it.?

Recently, Payne has had her resolve tested by a kidney infection that forced her to take a couple of weeks off training. But she was back to finish seventh out of 5,000 at the British Gas Great London Swim on May 26 at the Royal Victoria Docks, the same venue to be used for the London Triathlon.

The Olympic 10km will be very different, and not just because it is being staged in Hyde Park. The Serpentine is a mere puddle compared to the Beijing venue, which offered 6.35 million square metres of surface area. As a result, the swimmers will have to circumnavigate six buoys rather than the usual four.

?Going round the buoys is a huge energy-expending part of the race,? Payne says. ?That?s when most of the fighting gets done, and when the second and third spot normally changes a lot. If you?re in the wrong position, you?re pretty much guaranteed to get an elbow or kick in the stomach.?

And that?s where analogies with other long-distance sports end. Marathon runners do not give each other Chinese burns. Cyclists don?t butt their neighbour on the run-in to the line. (Well, only occasionally.)

As a swimmer, it makes perfect sense to be out in front of the arguments, the jockeying and the hassle. Once she takes up her regular position at the front of the pack, Payne feels as free as a bird.

Keri-Anne Payne is a Speedo athlete. For information on the Virgin Active London Triathlon, visit www.thelondontriathlon.com

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568303/s/215a9ba4/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Csport0Colympics0Cswimming0C940A0A2370CLondon0E20A120EOlympics0EOpen0Ewater0Echampion0EKeri0EAnne0EPayne0Eavoids0Epain0Eby0Eleading0Eentire0Erace0Bhtml/story01.htm

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