Swimming: Jury stuns with breathtaking swim

Alannah Jury reflects on her prospects of qualifying for the world championships after a brilliant effort at Lake Karapiro. Photo / Sarah Ivey

You know you have done something pretty special when the organiser of a race has braced himself for questions over the length of the course.

But that's what Errol Newlands, race director of the Karapiro Swim Open Water Festival, knew he would be asked when teenage swimming sensation Alannah Jury completed the 10km race at Lake Karapiro yesterday in 1 hour 59 minutes flat.

"It will be raising eyebrows in Australia," Newlands said. "It's right up there with the best of the best. We talked about it afterwards, how there was the potential for someone to question the distance of the race."

Jury will travel to Australia in February for their nationals, an event that will determine who qualifies for the world champs in Roberval, Canada, in July.

Newlands said the race was four laps of a Rowing New Zealand course and and "there was nothing to suggest it wasn't a proper 2.5km loop".

To put Jury's time into perspective, Britain's Keri-Anne Payne became the World Champion over 10km with a time of 2:01:37 at Ostia Beach in Italy in July. Larisa Ilchenko, of Russia, won Olympic gold at Beijing in a time of 1:59:27.7.

Jury's time just happened to be 19m 48s ahead of her nearest female rival - she beat all the boys, too.

It is a time her coach Gary Francis believes will "send shockwaves through the Australian long-distance swimming community", a bold statement given that times can be misleading in long-distance swimming.

When you take into account the context, Francis believed the Ockers would be in a state of disbelief. The weekend before, the 18-year-old travelled to the New South Wales open water championships, winning the 5km event on the Saturday before bagging the 10km event the next day.

A transtasman flight and a few days later and she was swimming like a fish in 19.5-degree water, thought to be too cold to be conducive to really fast times. Jury has gone under 1h 59m once before, but that was in perfect, buoyant saltwater conditions in Queensland.

All added up, it's possible see why Francis believed Jury, whom he co-coaches with Judith Wright, was on the cusp of achieving huge things in her increasingly popular sport.

"We are determined she will establish herself in the top 10 in the world next year and, without trying to be too bold, we want to go all the way with this," he said.

All the way means a medal at the 2012 London Olympics, but, for the time being, a modest Jury is just happy she beat the boys.

"It was really good because the boys were meant to start before the girls, but in the end they started with us and I got to race them, rather than trying to catch up."

A bit of wounded pride out on the water, then?

"One just laughed. That was pretty cool."

She got more of a kick out of that than the time, as outstanding as it was, because it is in the melee at the start and around the buoys where Jury feels most vulnerable.

"I'm not too worried about times. It's what happens when you race that I'm concentrating on. Anything can change in a flash. They just have to beat you up and it's all over. It happens."

To help counter that Jury trains alongside boys "with big elbows".

The North Shore Swim Club racer finished school this month and is contemplating a degree in sports and exercise science at either the Auckland University of Technology or Massey's Albany campus. Melissa Ingram yesterday broke the New Zealand record in finishing second fastest in the heats of the women's 400m freestyle at the Queensland state championships in Brisbane.

Ingram's time of 4:11.57 was 3/10ths under the mark set for qualification for next year's Commonwealth Games.