Payne Leads the Way to Rome

British Gas Team for FINA World Championships Announced

Jun 6, 2009

Olympic silver medallist Keri-Anne Payne will lead the British Gas Open Water team to the 13th FINA World Championships in Rome.

The seven-strong team that will compete at the championships in July was announced by the ASA yesterday.

Although the team will be without Olympic medallists David Davies and Cassie Patten, British Swimming Open Water Performance Manager Mark Perry believes they will do well.

He said: “We’re obviously going in minus two medallists, but we still have Keri-Anne [Payne] so we are hoping for good things from her.

“We would love to come away with a few medals but we have to be realistic so we can’t expect a repeat of Beijing, but there should definitely be some good performances.

“It will be good to put them up against the world’s best and see how they perform.”

The team will consist of Richard Charlesworth, Daniel Fogg, Craig Hamilton, Alfie Howes, Keri-Anne Payne, Charlotte Wooliscroft and Katy Whitfield.

Mark Perry said: “There are definitely a number of great young athletes on the team: Richard Charlesworth and Daniel Fogg are doing really well and Katie Whitfield was awesome in Israel. Hopefully they’ll be able to perform on an even bigger stage.”

We’re mainly going to the World Championships for the experience – everything now is about building a team and working toward London 2012 which is our main goal.”

LEN Open Water Cup

In May, the British Gas team came away from the LEN Open Water Cup in Israel with four of the six medals available in the open water events.

Payne led four British girls throughout the women’s 10km claiming the gold medal. Katy Whitfield came second followed by Charlotte Wooliscroft who took the bronze. Sophie Casson, the final Brit claimed fourth place.

In the men’s race Richard Charlesworth beat Belgium’s Brian Ryckeman to the top spot while Israel’s Michael Dmitriev finished in third place. Brit boys Daniel Fogg and Craig Hamilton finished in fourth and fifth place respectively.

FINA World Championships

The Championships will take place over 17 days and will include swimming, open water swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming.

The swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming events will take place in the Foro Italico which consists of four permanent and two temporary pools. The Foro Italico can hold up to 400,000 visitors and is also the home of the Village Roma09, the hospitality village where the athletes will stay.

The open water events will take place in the sea off Ostia between the 19 and 22 July.

The British Gas Team

The British Gas team to compete in the FINA World Championships will consist of:

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