BARCELONA: Heidi Gan has described her first World Championships open water swimming experience as “brutal” after finishing a respectable 29th at the Port of Barcelona here.
The 24-year-old, who is based in Australia, battled hard to the 10km finish line under the sweltering summer sun in just under two hours.
Only Heidi knows how it must have felt as she thrashed her way through her 1’59.014 long encounter.
“It was a very, very tough race out there. The main pack was over 40 swimmers deep and the turning buoys were brutal!,” said the double Indonesia SEA Games gold medallist, who admitted that she had learnt a lot from the experience.
“I got pushed under a number of times at the buoys and lost 15 places easily each time.
“Part the reason for the brutality was because of the shape of the course – it followed the harbour and involved eight buoy turns.
“Imagine all the girls trying to go around a buoy, eight times in one loop and then multiply it by four laps – that’s 32 buoy turns.
“In fact, I lost my outside cap (I usually wear two) and one of my contacts in my eyes during the race ... I had to re-adjust my goggles four times due to the physical contact.
“But I understand that in open water racing, the trick is to recover from each blow and focus on the race.”
Heidi was pleased, though, to have accomplished her pre-race target.
“I gave it my all and, although I finished 29th, I was only 40 seconds off the win, which is my best margin so far in a world race,” she said.
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