The New Zealand swimmer Cara Baker bounced back from her health scare earlier in the week to secure a top-10 finish in the five-kilometre open water at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai.
The 21-year-old was ninth in a strong field, seven seconds behind winner Swann Oberson of Switzerland who took out the title in just over an hour in hot conditions at Jinshan City Beach.
Teammate Kane Radford of Rotorua was 27th in a packed men's race won by Germany's Thomas Lurz who reversed the result of the 10-kilometre event over Greece's Spyros Gianniotis.
Swimming New Zealand open water manager Philip Rush was thrilled for Baker who showed her true worth after fainting twice in the lead-up to the 10km race earlier in the week.
Baker, Radford and New Zealand's other open water swimmers will now need to set themselves for the national championships in Taupo in January which will determine the swimmers to go to the second qualifying in Portugal next May to determine the final nine spots for the London Olympics.
Meanwhile the pool swimmers have arrived from their training base in Hong Kong ready for competition which gets underway in two days.
Five swimmers - Sophia Batchelor, Dylan Dunlop-Barrett, Daniel Bell, Lauren Boyle and Glenn Snyders will be in action on the first day on Sunday along with the women's 4x100m freestyle relay team.
