Slater Black wins 9th Jendamark Bellbuoy Challenge
The toughest Indian Ocean swim in the world took place on Saturday morning in Nelson Mandela Bay in near perfect swimming conditions off Pollok Beach with 17 year old Pearson Scholar Slater Black winning the wetsuit category in a time of 58 minutes and 49 seconds. Conditions couldn’t have been better for the swimmers as they set off on the 5km swim and improved throughout the morning with the swimmers heading 2.5km directly out to sea to round the nautical Bell Buoy where the ocean currents make for extremely tough swimming.
The richest open water swimming race in the Eastern Cape with a prize pool of R42,000 cash saw reigning aQuellé Ocean Racing Series Champion and Nelson Mandela Bay River Mile Champion, Amica de Jager, from NMU win the ladies wetsuit category in a record time of 59 minutes and 13 seconds with former Springbok swimmer Kevin Richards placing 2nd in the Men’s Wetsuit Category ahead of top up and coming EP open water swimmer Heinrich Vorster whilst Tracy Gous, in her first Bellbuoy Challenge, placed 2nd in the ladies wetsuit swim ahead of Liza Kingston. SA Swimming legend, 49 year old Gary Albertyn of Pretoria won the Men’s swim suit category in a time of 1 hour 4 minutes ahead of Cape Town’s Andrew Turner and PE swimmer PJ Duffy in 3rd place. Black’s 15 year old sister, Paige, won the ladies swim suit category in a time of 1 hour 12 minutes ahead of Albertyn’s wife, Megan, and de Jager’s sister, Chane.
This year saw a record entry of 155 swimmers taking part with a phenomenal 47% of the field swimming the event for their first time whilst Mary-Anne Stott, Stanford Slabbert, Ralph West and Andre Kleynhans swam their 9th consecutive Bellbuoy Challenge. Eight swimmers this year won their 5 year attendance award which was a smaller version of the unique wire and bead Bellbuoy replica trophy which is hand crafted by local trader Cosmos Zvichauya..
Full results from the event can be found on the website www.bellbuoychallenge.co.za with all the action pictures on the events facebook page.