The Adventure Province once again shows it’s supremacy with its choice of competitive events available for open water swimmers (OWS) as the new Nelson Mandela Bay Aquatics’ (NMBA) sanctioned EC Swim Series gets under way on Sunday 1st November at Settlers Dam just outside Grahamstown. The EC Swim Series will become the only sanctioned OWS event in the Eastern Province where registered swimmers can obtain Swimming South Africa (SSA) qualifying times.
The EC Swim Series will be hosted by local non-profit sports company Zsports Events NPC who also manages the SPAR River Mile for NMBA and owns the fortnightly aQuellé Ocean Racing Series in Port Elizabeth. The Series is scheduled to consist of 5 race days including 2 NMBA Championship events and takes place on Sunday 1st and 15th November in 2015 and again in January 2016 ahead of the NMBA OWS Championships being held on the first two weekends of February 2016.
“We are very excited to have been approached by Nelson Mandela Bay Aquatics to host their official swim series as we have a great working relationship and look forward to hosting a swim series in the Grahamstown region as it gives swimmers from the Makana and Border regions an opportunity to attend more regular qualifying events” said Series director Mike Zoetmulder of Zsports.
The EC Swim Series, which is primarily focused on SSA registered swimmers, includes the Olympic 10km distance, the SSA OWS 5km and 3km distances, as well as a 1km swim and will be open to all open water swim enthusiasts offering a fantastic training base for triathletes and water polo players in the Eastern Cape.
Swimmers wanting to qualify for provincial team selection and/or attend the SA OWS national championships will be required to swim an SSA qualifying time on at least two separate occasions at the EC Swim Series in their selected race distance. During the Series the 10km and 5km races will be swum at the same time allowing a swimmer to enter for both distances and obtain their official 5km time whilst doing the 10km race. These races will start at 08h30, followed by the 3km at 10h30 and the 1km at 12h00.
Series registration is a once-off R50 to secure a race number for the season whilst race day entry fees are R100 for the 10km, 5km and 3km swims and R80 for the 1km swim. Swimmers entering more than one event on a race day will get the second event discounted to just R50. See www.ecswim.co.za for further information and online registration ahead of Round 1.
Alan Straton
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