 The 7 swimmers L-R, Durant Webster, Bernie Poort, Aleka Freijah, Alex Montoro, Stuart Brown, Kat Riley and Tyson Feekings. At the end of the 3.7km swim to Manono, they then ran the 6.14km trail around the island. Pic. - Susie Poort. On a perfect day, that was the backdrop for the very first Manono Island Swim + Run event. There have been many swims to and from Manono, but never a run.
The run is the continuation of the Samoa Events Run Series, and the swim is helping push out the boundaries for local open water swimmers in preparation for the international swim season to come. In the end it was a thoroughly perfect double event. The seven swimmers all finished the race with a smile on their face. For six of them it was their first swim to Manono from the mainland. Over the years, I have swam with many swimmers to Manono to fulfil their dream of touching land after swimming 3.7kms in Open water. I have done a few on my own, and many a times, I have turned around and swam straight back. It is the swim here: Open, free, challenging and safe. All those aspects were in play yesterday. When you first stand at the Manono wharf looking at the island it looks so close that you can almost touch it. It gives the swimmer a slightly misleading sense for the swim to come. For the first 1km in the smooth of the leeward part of the mainland that sense a very easy swim stays with you. Then the challenge emerges. The current of the day starts to take over. The closer you are to the island the more prescribed the current becomes, and its either sweeping right or sweeping left. Yesterday, it was sweeping right to left across the face of Manono. There were some big curves in the end in some of those individual lines. But it was all safe and a great yarn was told by everyone of their swim at the end. The crossing was won by young Durant Webster of Tanifa o le Vai. His time of 1hr 18mins was 10 seconds ahead of Ty Feekings. The two made a break for it together early on, and stayed together to the finish. Alex Montoro was second, followed by ANZ CEO Bernie Poort. Bernie was the only one of yesterday’s group to have swum to Manono before. He is relishing being back from Tonga and being able to inject himself into the local open swimming programme. The two ladies, Aleka Freijah and Kat Riley swam together and were the next to finish. Stuart Brown is slowly getting back into swimming and was last to finish in 1hr 55mins. He had a great swim. Next, the swimmers joined the rest of the group for the Run and Trot around the perfect island – no cars, no dogs, no bikes. The entire 6.14km trail and track around the island is litter-free and well maintained. There were 24 runners / walkers in total. The run started at 3pm in the afternoon in the heat of the day. In the run was newly returned Ironman Darren Young who used the race to loosen up tired legs from a week ago. Alex, Durant and Ty doubled up from the swim to take the top three placings in the run. Montoro claimed his first run title in the Run Series. Combined times gives young Durant Webster overall victory of the race. Super Kat Riley takes another win in the run series and is the first women’s Manono combined winner. The next Samoa Events race is the Race 2 of the TRI Series next Saturday at Mulinu’u. RESULTS top 7 Swim 3.7kms
Run 6.14kms
Winners: Men, Durant Webster; Women, Kat Riley END
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 I have seen every Cameron Brown finish of the last four years. That is how long I have been a happy volunteer at IMNZ It was great to volunteer again for Ironman NZ, something that I do every year. I am usually in Transition (T1) with Robyn Orchard's Team, but then I am also all over the place. I am always there on Friday for Bike racking. It is great to welcome back multiple Taupo IM men and women. Then you get to meet the virgin Ironman, in for the very first taste of the ultimate race at the this great location. Over the years I have accumulated a number of friends that also compete. Many have been to Samoa to do our Events. Volunteering is a chance to catch up with many of them. I now have fine tuned the art of doing my work at T1 and being at the right place at the right time to catch a pic of the many friends I was following. Ironman this year had very tough conditions. The wind picked up during the night which stirred the mighty lake. The swim was rough and slow for the non-swimmers. The wind then stayed around for the bulk of the 180km ride. The ride out to Reporoa a third faster than the return leg. There was not going to be any PBs today because of the wind. Up above, it was blue skies all day. It was great to see Cameron Brown (Samoa Warrior 2013) run a great race. I am right there handing out race backs with all the wonderful volunteers as the athletes come streaming through. I saw Cam, and he was well over 5 minutes behind in the swim. It was great to see him in at second place after running the best marathon of the day at 2:42:29. I managed to have a chat with Cam afterwards. Given another 2kms he might have caught up with first time winner Braden Currie. I saw Braden come in to win in a flash of speed. He was in control of his race. I also caught up with Graham O'Grady (Samoa Warrior 2013, 14) who unfortunately blew out in the bike leg. Always nice chatting with GOG. Then there was Stephen Farrell who has been to Samoa several times to compete with us. Steve won his Age Group, 55-59. He's amazing. Then there is the group of Samoan athletes from around the world and NZ that competed including our very own Darren Young from Samoa who was chasing his second full Ironman. He did nicely at 12:16:00. Just ahead of Darren, Karen Rasmussen crossed the line at 12:14:00 and her brother Lee who lives in PNG finished in 13:02:41. Michael Stowers completed his 11th Taupo IM 4 minutes shy of midnight. I saw him off the bike and he was spent. But he's done it before, he was always going to finish. Managed to catch Mose Saseve at the finish line after crossing for his virgin IM 14:08:31. There were two representatives from American Samoa. Patrick McEntire was on his first IM. He started with us in Apia, coming across from Pago Pago back in February 2016 to compete in his first Olympic Distance. Then in July he completed the Samoa Warrior Race Half Iron distance, and in October finished the Sau'ai Giants' TRIATHLON 3/4 IM on Savaii in 10hrs 52mins. In Taupo, he completed his first FULL IM in 14:32:18. This is a great story. Richard Birgander is a Swede who came to Samoa to compete in the Sau'ai Savaii Giants TRI last year. He completed his second IM hand in hand with his mate Patrick. The standout performance for me was from Abby Armstrong who was doing her first IM. She had only competed in one triathlon before Taupo. Yes, I hear you say! Not only that, Abby swam the Apolima Strait with us a year ago. She's the Women's Record holder for Apolima Strait 6hrs 30mins. Here she was lining up for her first IM. She smashed the swim in 1:02:17 and rode 6:10:48 in the bike. That was impressive. Something had to give and it was in the run that things slowed down for her. Her marathon time of 5:14:47 is in itself impressive. Abby finished 11th in her AGR in 12:37:14. Abby is returning to Samoa for the Apolima Strait swim next month. This time in a team with mum Jo. There is a lot of energy in that little frame.
Virgin Ironmen no more - Mose Saseve of Auckland and Patrick McEntire of American Samoa The other brilliant performance was from Anna Dungey (Tour of Samoa 2016). Anna was the only athlete I spoke to who did a Taupo PB in those conditions. Well done Anna.
I also caught up with Katherine Reardon (Samoa Swim Series 2014). She was second female overall in the Half Ironman. And there was a heartbreak story. My best mate Paul Glenn was on to his 10th Taupo IM. He had done a lot of preparation for the race, at the same time he needed everything to be equal for him to have a chance of getting in before midnight. The wind and three flat tyres did not help. He was 10mins from cut off in the swim at T1, and missed the bike cut off by 1 minute. He was the first off the bike after the cut off. I was part of this support crew with his wife Robin, and good friend Katheren Leitner. We all had an emotional time in the big Tent accepting the fact his race was over. Paul will be back next year. After the race, I drove late in the night back to Auckland to catch my flight back to Samoa on Sunday arriving home at 5am. I will be back in Taupo next year at T1, and Racking bikes on Friday before the race. END |
