Keri-Anne Payne - Swimmer
After David’s retirement, is he still involved in swimming? Yes, very much so. He has recently been appointed onto the Scottish Swimming Board of Directors and is an Ambassador for the 2014 commonwealth games so he still has a big involvement and keen interest in it.
Speaking of the Commonwealth Games, there’s no open water event, have you decided if and how you’ll be involved next year? With no open water event at the Commonwealths for me to compete in I still want to be involved, competing in the pool would be a possible option but I would love to be involved in the presenting side of things, I think that would be fun.
If you were going to go into the pool it will mean competing against some good friends surely? It would, but then that’s part and parcel of what I have done for the last 15 years. I have loads of good friends who are competitors in the water and friends outwith, so it wouldn’t make a huge amount of difference anyway.
Is it straightforward to separate training for the pool and open water training? Do they differ that much? The easy answer is that they don’t differ at all! All my training for open water swimming is done in the pool so in reality the only difference would be that there was less volume!
And before that there is the
World Swimming Championships in Barcelona – will doing the test event beforehand be a big advantage? Yes, without doubt, it can only help. It is really good to see the course and do the test event, especially as within the course there are a couple of tight turns and getting used to them will be good to experience beforehand.
Have you set yourself a specifi c target for Barcelona? To enjoy every part of it and enjoy the experience. It can be easy to get too down if you don’t do well, but the main thing is that I absolutely love swimming and I think it’s important to love what you do.
Can you tell us a bit about this River Forth challenge that you’re doing for charity – what exactly does it entail? Yeah, this is a joint fundraising event for the Warrender’s 125 year anniversary and Cash For Kids. The idea of the challenge is that people are set the target to swim the length of the River Forth, which is 47km. They have 17 weeks to do it, so the challenge is about promoting regular swimming, rather than a one-off event. For my training, however, I have been doing this distance at least one and a half times every week, so by the time the 17 weeks are up I will have swam the length of the Forth at least 20 times.
The last time we spoke to you was quite soon after the Olympics - you said you were gutted, but
HEAD TO HEAD
ultimately proud of what you had achieved? Has your opinion changed at all over time? Not so gutted now, I can’t change the result. Looking back at it I am proud of what I achieved and have got just back on with the swimming and training regardless.
Is Rio a target? It’s defi nitely too far away to think about at the moment, it’s that old cliché but I am just taking each year as it comes at the moment and when it gets closer to the time then I can assess then.
Does Becky’s (Adlington) retirement affect your thoughts about the future? Will it be strange not having her around the GB team as much? Well I admit that it is very strange with Becky not being there and not being on the team, from my side and hers. But it hasn’t really affected my particular thoughts of the future, as I said I’m just taking each year as it comes at the moment and that would still have been the same if Becky was still competing.
On your website you did a food blog – do you enjoy cooking? Do you have a signature dish? I love cooking, if we’re talking signature dish I’d have to say that I make a great banana loaf.
It sounds delicious. It really is!
Thanks Keri-Anne Thank you.
✤ Career highlight? Walking out at London to a crowd of 20,000 people cheering me on
✤ Most admired opponent? Becky Adlington, for what she has achieved in her career andretained
✤ Last fi lm you watched (was it any good)? Welcome to the Punch - it was boy movie…
✤ Sweet or savoury food? Sweet ✤ Favorite holiday destination? France ✤ What team/s do you support? Man United ✤ Worst habit? I’m untidy ✤ Word/phrase you overuse? Amazing ✤ If we gave you £10 right now, what would you buy? Coff ee. I love coff ee. I’d have some change, surely? So then a scone or cake to go with it.
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