New Zealand trio chase open water spots in final Rio qualifier

Three New Zealand swimmers will take on a glamour field in the last-gasp 10km Open Water Rio Olympic qualifier in Portugal over the weekend.

New Zealand champions Kane Radford and Charlotte Webby are joined by Auckland’s Phillip Ryan in the field for the Marathon Swimming Olympic Qualifier at Setubal, 60km south of Lisbon.

There are 71 men and 51 women chasing qualification with nine places in both male and female up for grabs.

It will be a huge challenge for the Kiwis with the super-strong fields including many swimming stars.

They include current world 25km silver medalist Brian Ryckeman (BEL), double Olympic freestyle medalist Mireia Belmonte (ESP), the two-time world open water champion Keri-Anne Payne (GBR), last year’s world team champion Christian Reichert (GER), 1500m world medalist Gergely Gyurta (HUN), the current world 5km open water champion Chad Ho (RSA), four-time world open water medalist Evgeny Drattsev (RUS) and Tunisia’s Oussama Mellouli, who won this event in 2012 on his way to the gold medal in London.

The initial 10 qualifiers in the 25-strong field for both men and women in Rio was determined on placings at last year’s world championship in Russia.

The hosts have an automatic spot along with the top nine finishers at the weekend in both events. The remaining five spots go to the first home not already qualified from each of the five global regions.

In 2012 New Zealand’s Cara Baker came closest to qualifying, finishing just two seconds off the last qualifier, while Radford was 27^th after being in contention going into the final lap.

The women’s race starts at 4pm on Saturday local time (2am Sunday NZT) and the men at 4pm Sunday local time (2am Monday NZT).