SA’s Amica de Jager win’s 10th Jendamark Bellbuoy Challenge
The sold out field of participants for the 10th Jendamark Bellbouy Challenge were welcomed to Pollok Beach on Saturday morning to the best swimming conditions the Challenge has ever produced. Nelson Mandela Bay, first stop on the international swimming Open Water World Tour (OWWT), showed off with Mediterranean like conditions for the duration of the 5km swim and even threw in a sprinkling of Bottlenose dolphins to add the cherry on the top to a diverse field of swimmers which included 22% from outside of the Bay.
SA Lifesaving’s recently crowned Victrix Laudorum, St Francis Bay’s Amica de Jager, absolutely blew the field away with her best display of open water swimming to date by winning in a new ladies swim record of 57 minutes 42 seconds, the events fastest winning time in 4 years. Defending Men’s champion, Gary Albertyn from Pretoria, was just 6 seconds behind in a time which was 1/100 of a second faster than his 3rd placing time of 2015 when the event enjoyed near perfect conditions.
Lindi Terblanche was the first Port Elizabeth swimmer home in the ladies category with a 2nd placing whilst Spanish swimmer Andrea Fos Corbera, 2018 OWWT Ladies champion, finished in 3rd place. Kyle White was the first PE swimmer in the Men’s category with his 2nd place ahead of Pretoria’s Abdul Malick Railoun. 2018 OWWT Men’s champion, Xavier Aspiazu, placed 10th overall in the Men’s category.
Locally crafted bead and wire replica’s of the Bellbuoy went to age group winners Andrew Turner & Tanya Osborne (40-49 yrs), Gary Albertyn & Lizette Owen (50-59 yrs) and Marcus Burri & Gail Wild (60 years and over) whilst trophies also went to the youngest swimmer on the morning, Kate Tinley (15 yrs) with oldest Rolf Kordes (79 yrs).
The top 10 Male and Female swimmers shared a prize purse of R76,000 with De Jager and Albertyn walking away with R10,000 each and will now lead the 9 race 2019 OWWT series till round 2 in California on the 8th June.
“This was a terrific event which meets all the objectives of the OWWT which is identifying unique and appealing open water swim races around the world for those that love the sport of open water swimming, ” said OWWT co-founder Oscar Rubio at the prize giving on Saturday. “It has been fantastic to partner with Zsports Event NPC in Port Elizabeth and Michael Zoetmulder and his team can be very proud of this world class managed event which we look forward to returning to next year.”
Full results from the event are available on www.zsports.co.za/bellbuoy with pictures from the event on their social media pages.
Supplied by Zsports Events NPC