Grey student wins Gamtoos River Mile open water swim

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Monday, 18 October 2010 13:17

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Van de Sande wins inaugural open water swim event

Grey High School scholar, Chris van de Sande (17) became the first ever Gamtoos River Mile champion on Sunday at a very well supported inaugural Zports XT Festival held at the Ferry Hotel on the Gamtoos River. In near perfect conditions, hundreds of spectators and participants packed the banks of the Gamtoos River to witness the inaugural Gamtoos River Mile.

With a combined men’s and ladies start, van de Sande led from start to finish across the 1.6km rectangular course to finish in a time of 17min 31secs. EP 10km open water swimming champion, Michael Marais was 21 seconds off the pace to finish 2nd with 15 year old Jonathan Roux in 3rd place in 18min 50 seconds. Ladies open water swimming sensation and EP’s best bet for the 2010 London Olympics for open water swimming, Jessica Roux, finished 4th overall in a time of 20min 11secs to take the ladies title and the R750 prize money. 14 year old Jamie Schlemmer was 2nd in the ladies category, just ahead of Rebecca Newman in 3rd place. 12 year old Caro de Jager showed that she’s certainly going to be a strong medal contender for next year’s SPAR Redhouse River Mile with a 4th place finish in the ladies category.

Earlier on the day runners and walkers took part in the XT Festival events with Jeffreys Bay speedster Kobus Joubert winning the 15km run in a time of 49min 38sec from Ocean Racing Series World 5km Beach Champion Marinus Johnson and Roberltuis Matthys. Nadia Kock won the ladies 15km race in 1hr 23min 43sec from Sina Smith and Doris Liberty. CJ Landman won the 5km Fun Run from 9 year old Kyle de Lange with ladies 5km winner, 10 year old Jenna Parry, finishing 3rd overall. Prior to the Mile swim, kids 12 years and under enjoyed their own race along the banks of the Gamtoos river with young Lodewyk van Biljon crossing the line first ahead of Johan Jacobs and Anja Kuyler. The youngest swimmer in the race was 4 year old Jason Crowhurst who finished in 15th place.

Full results of the festival are available on the website www.xt-festival.co.za. The next Mile swimming event will be the Steers Marina Mile which takes place at Marina Martinique on Thursday 23rd December as part of the Jeffreys Bay Swimming Festival which also includes the Eastern Cape’s first ever 25km swimming race on Wednesday 22nd December.