Nelson’s Kelly makes short work of Big Tahuna swim
Nelson’s ocean swimming fraternity made good use of home advantage as the Interislander Big Tahuna Ocean Swim made its debut at Tahunanui Beach on Saturday.
Replacing the Christchurch Crown event as the South Island stop in the seven-leg national Banana Boat Ocean Swim Series, this year’s inaugural event attracted more than 540 competitors from the Nelson Tasman region and around the country.
Four scheduled races were held in calm conditions in Tasman Bay - the 3km ‘I’m Going Long’ swim, a 500m or 1000m option and a 200m kids swim.
Nelson swimmers featured prominently across all races, with winning performances in the recent Port Nelson Swim Series translating to further success at the weekend.
In the 3km event, Mens 20-24 years competitor Luke Kelly led home the 390-strong 3km field in a time of 34 minutes 48 seconds.
Nelson’s Kerry Mathieson was among the other age group winners in the 3km event, claiming the womens 50-54 category in a time of 44 minutes 11 seconds.
Mathieson said while Saturday’s course offered a slight variation to the usual local race circuit,
Given the large participation of Nelson swimmers in local competition as well as other legs around New Zealand, she said it made sense to award Nelson a leg of its own, even if it had come at the expense of Christchurch.
‘‘I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t entered – it’s such a huge competition to have here and I wanted to make sure I supported it.’’
The final race of the day was the Banana Boat Oceankids 200m, which was taken out by Alex Dunkley (3:51) and Anna Lepua (4:11) in the boys and girls categories respectively.