Heidi huffs and puffs her way to 16th placing

HEIDI Gan finished a creditable 16th in the women’s 10km marathon swimming event at Hyde Park.
The Malaysian was timed at 2’00:45.0 in the gruelling five-lap race won by Hungary’s Eva Risztov in 1’57:38.2.

Haley Anderson of the United States and Martina Grimaldi of Italy finished second and third respectively.

Heidi was in 12th position after two laps but dropped behind as the race progressed.
She was one of two Asians to finish the race. Yumi Kida of Japan placed 13th with a time of 1’58:59.1.

The other Asian in the fray, Fang Yangqiao of China failed to complete the race.
Heidi was very pleased with her effort, saying it would encourage her to work harder.

“This is a tremendous result for me. I was around 24th in the rankings and now I’m 16th best. That’s an achievement. I wanted to make the top 20 here and that target has been met.

“Now, it’s back to training and I will work on my endurance further. This race has highlighted some of the weak areas and I will look into them for sure.”

Risztov was out front most of the way, leading a five-woman pack that broke away from the rest of the field.

Anderson was the only one with a chance to chase down the leader after they made the turn for home, but the Hungarian reached up to make the touch just ahead of the US swimmer by four-tenths of a second after the nearly two-hour slog.



THE STAR