After rescheduling due to inclement weather, the Swift Swimming Club hosted its third annual 5k open water race on Sunday at Palm Cay. The top male and female finishers on the 5k course were Alec Sands in a time of 1:18.47 and Tenniya Martin in a time of 1:21.37.
Devante Carey and Salene Gibson were the top finishers in the 1.6k race. Carey finished in a time of 28.52 minutes while Gibson finished in 31.19 minutes. The oldest swimmer in the race was Percy Knowles who completed the one-mile course in 54.30 minutes. For the achievement he was awarded the prestigious Susan Morley trophy.
"Sunday turned out to be a good post-hurricane swim race in the ocean," said Swift Swimming head coach Andy Knowles.
"A slight chop with a good breeze, a sunny sky at a beautiful Palm Cay location made for good swim racing that is a lot different than a flat and calm pool. As open water swimming continues to be more popular both here at home and around the world, we see a greater participation from all the swim clubs. Sunday's event saw five swim clubs participating, with swimmers covering all the different courses and most of the age groups."
One of the major additions to Sunday's race was the use of electronic timing. Each swimmer wore a wristband with an electronic chip that recorded the swimmer's official time over the course. Last year there were some difficulties with the timing, but this year, Knowles said everything worked out as planned.
"The electronic timing used worked well, giving accurate times that in some instances proved to be really important, as a few finishers were only one second apart," he said. "The swimmers started at the edge of the water and finished about 10 feet onto the beach where the times were recorded electronically. Fifty meters of lane ropes were used on both sides, forming a funnel to guide the swimmers to the electronic finish."
Each age group was awarded medals for the top three finishers.
Next up on the swimming calendar will be this weekend's Masters Swimming tournament, hosted by the Dolphin Swim Club. The Masters cover all age groups from 18 to 100. The Masters tournament gets underway at 8 a.m. on Saturday at St. John's Pool.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
