SLATER Black, a 17-year-old learner at Pearson High School, won the wetsuit category of the toughest Indian Ocean swim in the world that took place on Saturday in near perfect swimming conditions off Pollok Beach.
Black won his 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 in 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.
Former Springbok swimmer Kevin Richards placed second in the men’s wetsuit category ahead of top up-and-coming EP open water swimmer, Heinrich Vorster.
Tracy Gous in her first Bellbuoy Challenge placed second in the ladies’ wetsuit swim ahead of Liza Kingston.
SA Swimming legend Gary Albertyn (49) of Pretoria won the men’s swim suit category in a time of 1 hour and 4 minutes ahead of Cape Town’s Andrew Turner and PE swimmer PJ Duffy in third 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. Mary-Anne Stott, Stanford Slabbert, Ralph West and Andre Kleynhans swam their ninth consecutive Bellbuoy Challenge.
For the full results of the event go to www.bellbuoychallenge.co.za.
