Keri-Anne comes home with a medal

Keri-Anne Payne — silver medal

LOCAL swimmer Keri-Anne Payne (above, left) shrugged off her disappointment in the pool to win an Olympic Games silver medal this morning in the women’s 10 kilometre open water marathon.

And it was a highly emotional moment for the 20-year-old who so nearly struck gold at the Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park as the Olympics hosted the event for the first time.

It was only in the last 100metres that Payne and fellow Brit Cassandra Patten, from the Stockport Metro club, were overtaken by the sprint finish of eight times world champion Larisa Ilchenko from Russia.

Payne was still overjoyed to have won a medal after she and Patten had been ahead for almost the entire race. She eventually clocked 1hr 59min 29.2sec which was 1.5sec behind Ilchenko and a lifetime best for the distance by almost two and a quarter minutes.

She said: “I cannot describe how it feels because swimming has been my whole life for the last 16 years.

“In that time I have always dreamed of competing in the Olympics and winning a medal - and to have done both is amazing.”

Payne also praised her parents Jim and Patricia, who is a credit controller for Oldham firm Character Options, for the considerable sacrifices they have made to enable her to fulfil her dream.

Neither were able to make it to Beijing and Payne later spoke to them as she waited for her routine doping test.

“All the family had watched the race and they were shouting and screaming all the time I was speaking to them,” she explained.

Heywood-based Payne, who did not make a splash in either the 200m and 400m individual medleys in the pool, had qualified for the Olympic open water finals by finishing eighth in the world championships in Seville, Spain, earlier this year.