HKFC dominate at the Middle Island Challenge
HKFC dominate at the Middle Island Challenge
19 Jun 2024On 15th May, the sun was shining, water calm and 300+ swimmers ready for the annual Middle Island Challenge at Deep Water Bay. Our swimmers participated in both the 1.5km, and the 3.8km, the latter route starting at Deep Water Bay beach and going around Middle Island. Most of our swimmers competed in the 3.8km, however the day got off to an exciting start with Vasco Van Der Flier completing the 1.5km in just 21.24 minutes, coming 1st in his category and 4th overall.
13 swimmers from HKFC competed in the 3.8km from a mass start. With over 260 swimmers in the water ready to go, our swimmers started to pull away after the first kilometer following the initial stretch from Deep Water Bay towards Repulse Bay, before making a left around Middle Island towards the open ocean. Conditions were perfect with only a few waves on the south side of Middle Island, making it easier to spot and navigate. On the downward straight back to the beach and past Ocean Park, the first few swimmers had broken away.
To summarise, HKFC absolutely dominated the leaderboard, with 5 of the top 10 swimmers coming from our society. Craig Nortje and Braedon Sharp claimed 1st and 2nd overall, with Craig finishing in a rapid time of 48.33 mins and Braedon coming in less than a minute behind. Fred Clatworthy came in 5th, with Farah Master coming inside the top 10 and claimed the spot of second fastest female overall. Matthieu Mlv was close behind Farah finishing in 10th position overall (2nd M 30-39).
Janet Wu set a new age group record (1st F 40-49) of 57.15 mins. Christina Sjoholm also made the podium with a 3rd place finish in her age group (F 30-39) with Simon Holliday (4th M 40-49) and Simon Brewster (5th M 40-49) also arriving back on shore under 1 hr.
Lucy Barton (4th F 20-29), Matthieu Vignaud (10th M 40-49), Rupert Puels (8th M 50-59) and Mayank Vaid (20th M 40-49) also put in strong performances finishing between 1 hr and an 1 hr 15 mins. For many of the swimmers, pbs were smashed from previous years, with huge thanks to our coach Dominic Tsui for his words of wisdom and contributing a huge amount to these improvements.