11 Jun 2012

Rotorua swimmer Kane Radford misses out on Olympic dream

10:28 am on 11 June 2012

The Rotorua swimmer Kane Radford has missed out on his Olympic dream in the FINA marathon open water qualifier in Portugal this morning.

The 21 year old from Swimming New Zealand's High Performance Centre was well placed in the top seven after four of the six laps in the 10km race, swum at a solid pace in challenging tides at the Sado River course in Setubal.

However the New Zealander could not match the pace when the leaders turned up the speed over the final two laps, finishing 27th to be 1m 44s behind the winner, Tunisia's Oussama Mellouli, the Beijing 1500m freestyle gold medallist.

The swimming New Zealand open water manager Philip Rush says Radford went faster with every lap and gave it everything but couldn't keep up with the finishing pace.