A tight finish, with just two seconds seperating the top two in the single sur-ski race and powerful performances up front in the men’s and women’s footraces ensured that the 2011 Discovery Surfers Challenge will be rememberred for all the right reasons.
Having said that there was also heartbreak for a visiting runner from Pretoria who fell foul of the race rules, that she can reasonably be understood not to have known about.
The men’s winner, Melikaya Sithuba had finished 2nd in both 2008 and 2009, while slipping to 3rd in 2010. The former Two Oceans gold medalist powerred his way to win in the absence of the two previous winners, Mzuvelile Hlanti and Mluleki Nobanda. The winning time of 69:21 is 59 seconds better than that of last year, but the conditions this time were far superior. Looking at past results opens up an interestin debate on the 2008 race, albeit 1km shorter.
A former Surfers winner Doran Fritz came in second and new kid on the block, Mzukisi Kebeni was third. Most surprising was the fact that the top five postions had only one minor change from the exit at Gonubie River to the finish.
In the women’s race the unexpected arrival on the banks of the Gonubie River of Myvette Filnalter ahead of pre-race favourite Hanlie Botha had the locals scratching their heads. Filnalter hails from Pretoria and no-one had seen her in action before.
Botha looked equally surprised and came out of the water with a determination that saw the best emerge from her. She pressed on and powered to a good win over the last 12km.
Finalter crossed the finish in second, but was ruled out of contention by a race rule that precludes late entries from featuring in the results.
This lead to the awarding of second place to last year’s young sensation, Jessica Pollock with Stephanie Ackermann third. Andrea Ranger had crossed the line ahead, but apparently had her timing device on her wrist rather than ankle.
Botha won in 81:50, Pollock ran 87:55 and Ackermann 96:58.
The race amongst the Surfing fraternity is always keen and this year 17 year old Alex Rossouw ran superbly to win the battle and finish 6th overall in 74:43. Gary Muller after a late start was second in 84:18 and Liam Victor, fresh from his ultra run from Port Alfred to East London was third.
Bevan Manson, one of the lands top surf ski racers pipped the evergreen Hennie Roos in the single ski race – the two apddlers recording times of 78:37 and 78:47 respectively. Matthew Tebutt was third.
Andrew Carter and John de Smidt teamed up to take the double-ski title with a time of 77:43.
Catherine Atkinson won the womens’ single-ski, while Shane and Joy Roach won the Mixed category.
From a large field of walkers Thando Lunkwana emerged as a comfortable winner in the men’s event with a time of 1:51:12. Linda Poyo and Michael Struwig followed.
Esme Snyman was triumphant in the women’s version, walking to victory in 2:25:54, but she had Zelda Zitze and Louise Potgieter chasing hard.
Watch out for another post on some of the personalities and celebrities that took part.
