SA National open water swimmer, Jessica Roux, and her 16 year old brother Jonathan dominated the open water swimming events at Sunday’s Eastern Province Aquatic’s Cirrus Bio-Ears Swim Challenge Series hosted at Marina Martinique. The series, which has established itself as one of the South Africa’s premier open water swimming events, enjoyed its best start to the season with over 100 open water swimmers taking part.
SA World Championship 10km swimmer, Jessica, swam the day’s fastest times over the 10km and 5km distances with fast Swim SA qualifying times of 2hr 11min 15sec and 1hr 4min 26sec respectively whilst brother, Jono, posted the second fastest 5km time of 1hr 6min 14sec and the fastest 3km time of 39min 20sec.
“Today’s time was faster than my 10km swim at the World Championships, so I am very happy with my performance for this time of the season”, said Roux before heading back to Durban where she trains under SA Swim Coach Graham Hill, “Conditions in the Marina are perfect for open water swimming and it’s always great swimming here.” 16-year old Kayla Shortt swam her first 10km race of the season, finishing in a time of 2hrs 50min and 36sec. The Jones siblings, Wayne and Daniel placed 2nd and 3rd in the Mens 5km race whilst Lise-Mari Goosen and Tarryn Els recorded the ladies second and third best times on the morning.
In the most popular event, the 3km swim, Roux and the Jones brothers posted the fastest times whilst Jamie-Lee Schlemmer, Veruschka Jordaan and Megan van Wyk took the podium positions in the ladies category. In the 1km swim it was Caro de Jager from Brenton Williams with Ryan Harris and Mark Boshoff taking the minor medals whilst Rebecca Baard and Caroline Els took the remaining ladies medals.
For the youngsters, in the 14 and under 500m swim it was 12 year old Sanchia Booth who took the honours from Matthew Roux and Dylan Finlay whilst in the kids 10 and under bank to bank swim it was 9 year old Tristan Zoetmulder who took the gold from Roland van Wyk and Martin Wolmarans whilst 10 year old Claudia Zoetmulder won the girls gold medal. Full results from the first round of the Cirrus Bio-Ears Swim Challenge Series are available on the website www.ecswim.co.za. Next rounds takes place at Marina Martinique on Sunday 13th November from 9am.
Jessica Roux and her father, Kirsten
