KEY POINTS:
The top seeds shone in the opening round of the Zealand ocean swim series in Auckland today, with Kane Radford and Helen Norfolk winning with ease.
Both defending series champions laid down the gauntlet to their rivals in near perfect conditions on Waitemata Harbour, with Norfolk over a minute clear of Melissa Ingram and Radford a massive one minute 52 seconds ahead of Daniel Ryan.
Radford, 17, also smashed the race record with his 29min 37sec over the 2.8km distance.
Radford was typically modest in his summary.
"I didn't really have a race plan as such, initially I was just wanting to get away clean and then keep an eye on the others to see what they were doing," he said.
"Conditions were a little rougher than it looked from the beach with a reasonable chop in the middle stages. But I felt great, stronger than last year and am please with the swim."
Norfolk was almost as impressive in turning the tables on last year's event winner Ingram and also set a race record of 33min 48sec.
"That was so much better than last year when I had my goggles knocked off and didn't navigate too well," Norfolk said.
"I got a good clean start and found the heels of some good male swimmers and this time swam a reasonably direct line to the finish."
Ingram held out Invercargill's Joyce Wiegersma for second.
Nearly 1300 swimmers took part in the event.
- NZPA
