TRIATHLON - Warriner in the swim on eve of world cup event

WHEN Sam Warriner turned up at the beach in Gisborne late last year, she thought she knew a bit about swimming.
A handful of medals, gold ones even, from various races on the ITU world cup triathlon circuit, a world duathlon title and too many training hours in a swimming pool to contemplate had made her a swimmer of some consequence.
But it took only one plunge in the surf at Gisborne for Warriner to realise that she had a few more tricks to discover, especially when her dip in the surf was alongside former world surf ironman Corey Hutchings and his squad of surf lifesaving competitors.
Warriner was left for dead.
At the behest of her coach, Murray Healey, Hutchings is now Warriner's surf swim coach. Now Warriner hopes her new-found confidence as an open-water swimmer will help her launch her Olympic season in style in New Plymouth on Sunday.
It is just part of a well-documented training programme that has pushed Warriner to new limits of endurance with the Beijing Olympic race the elephant in the kitchen.
Warriner is one of the pre-race favourites for the world cup event on Sunday, a race that marks the start of her international campaign this year. But the competition will be fierce.
"[Healey] threw me into the biggest base I've ever done. At the start in January I didn't believe I'd be able to complete the sort of distances he was talking about, but it's really given me confidence and every week seems to have gone better than the last," Warriner said.
"I've spent a lot of time working on my swimming too. Murray organised for me to start working with Corey Hutchings and he [Hutchings] changed my stroke drastically.
"In the past I've tried to be technically proficient in the open water. But what works in the pool just doesn't work in open water when you add factors in such as chop and currents. Corey has opened my eyes to that now.
"We're certainly not finished with my swimming but it's come along way over the summer."
Warriner and Andrea Hewitt will both be contenders in the women's race with strong opposition from 2007 world No 2 Emma Moffat (Australia) and rising star and World U-23 champion Lisa Norden from Sweden.
World champion Vanessa Fernandez and Australian Annabel Luxford were late withdrawals from the event, opening the door further for one of the leading Kiwis or Oceania champion Moffat to pick up a world cup win.
In the men's race all eyes will be on world No 1 Javier Gomez after he began his season with a second place at Mooloolaba last weekend. Kiwis Bevan Docherty and Kris Gemmell will lead the local challenge.
So to will Shane Reed, who will almost certainly race on his home track for the final time. The 34-year-old has indicated that, regardless of selection for the Beijing Olympic Games team, 2008 is a year in which he is winding down his 15-year career at the top.
News of the final selections for Beijing are expected after the race on Sunday.
More than 30 countries will be represented on the start line in New Plymouth. Israel, Costa Rica, Kazakhstan, Finland, Mexico, Zimbabwe and Syria are all represented.