The Nelson Mandela Bay Aquatics (NMBA) open water swimming season kicked off on Sunday morning with the first round of the provincial Swim Series taking place at the pristine Marina Martinique, home of the SA Open Water Swimming National Championships in 2019. Over 100 swimmers from around the Eastern Cape took full advantage of the opportunity to secure early qualification times for the season with great swimming conditions on the morning with water temperatures permitting wetsuit legal races. This season there is a strong drive by NMBA to encourage swimmers into the longer distance races and in particular the Olympic distance 10km race with an incentive of a top of the range locally produced Blusmooth wetsuit as a 10km lucky draw at the end of the Series in January. 16 year old Flippie Van Der Spuy from the BEST swimming club won the 10km race on Sunday in a time of 2 hours 16 minutes ahead of Infinity Swimmer Josh Tucker (2:18:41) and Team Watersmart's Heinrich Vorster (2: 22:25) with Infinity swimmer Jessica Booth winning the ladies 10km division in a time of 2: 34:43. All four swimmers were inside the Swim SA 10km qualifying time of 2h30min for Men and 2h40min for Ladies. 3 swimmers contested the Youth Olympics distance of 7.5km with young up and coming SA swimmer Tasneen Ebrahim finishing in 1hr 47 ahead of Grahamstown swimmer Shaelyn Walker (1:56:07) and Luke Norris. In an increasingly popular 5km swim, it was the battle of the former legends of watersport with former national surf lifesaver and local swim coach, Haydn Holmes pipping former SA swimmer and surf lifesaver Kevin Richards with Deacon Kingman placing 3rd in the Men's race whilst Amica de Jager won the ladies race ahead of Hannah Murray and Tayla-Paige Lacey with the top 3 men and top 2 ladies qualifing within the SSA 5km qualification time of 1 hour 15 for Men and 1 hour 25 for ladies. In the 3km swim it was PJ Duffy who won in a time of 42 minutes and 31 seconds from MC Strydom and Martin Wolmarans with Liza Muller (43:28) taking the ladies race ahead of Denise Bosman and Tiara Finnis. The first 9 Men in this race qualified in 48 minutes and under whilst the top 9 ladies managed to swim under their 50 minute qualification time. The event also received praise from Swimming South Africa who will be hosting the South African Open Water National Championships at the same … [Read more...]