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This year's race was held in calm
conditions, with a morning light northerly wind
flattening the sea for the midday start on Saturday 30th
July.
The race had been postponed from the
16th July, when conditions were atrocious. We operate a
text messaging service going out to all swimmers and
helpers;
so fortunately we were able to give
about 24 hours notice of the bad weather on the original
date.
The only problem with using the
second date for races of this kind is that swimmers tend
to go on holiday!
So it was a reduced field of 84
swimmers who competed in this year's race.
Safety cover was provided as usual by
the Martlet Kayak Club, the RNLI and the Council
Lifeguards. The relatively calm sea gave them an easy
job, as most of the swimmers covered the course in under
40 minutes.
For the first time in living memory,
the fastest time was recorded in the Ladies race, with
Charlotte Wooliscroft clocking 20 minutes dead, 5
seconds quicker than Men's winner Andrew Horsfall-Turner.
Danni Pryor, last year's winner, came in second, with
Katherine Horsfall-Turner making it a family occasion
and completing the top 3 places in the Ladies' Race
Amongst the girls, the first two of
our own swimmers, competing in their first sea race were
Jade Earley and Lois Harrison, who clocked the same time
of 32 mins 08 seconds, and taking 14th and 15th places.
A terrific achievement and a reward for all the sea
training they'd been doing in the weeks leading up to
the race.
Hildi Mitchell was our only other
swimmer in the Ladies' race, finishing in 27th place and
was no doubt using the swim as a warm up for her next
Ironman Triathlon!
This year's course was changed to
allow for the closure of the steps on the pier, due to
repairs still in progress. Swimmers went from the West
Pier beach, out to sea and turned left, parallel to the
beach. Then it was left again near the pier, and a
sprint down to the finishing boats, just offshore from
the beach.
In the Men's race, our top swimmer
was Charlie Wood who did a great swim for 12th place.
Chad Anderson-Grout was just outside the top 20 - a
very encouraging placing, and one which is certain to be
improved on in the years to come.
The team prizes went to Shiverers,
who were well represented in the race, as usual. St
Bede's also had swimmers in the high placings.
Eastbourne took the first veteran prizes in both the
men's and women's races.
The likely swim dates for next year
are Saturday 21st July, with a reserve date of 2 weeks
later. So please arrange your holidays to avoid
those dates, and arrange for your training schedules to
include those dates!
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