River bridge champion heads north
He does monitor the cleanliness of the river through the city council.
“They say within the city limits, it is clean enough to swim. If there’s rain flow we keep a good eye on that. We’re also in close contact with Mercury who runs the hydro dam up at Karapiro, and they keep the river level nice for us.”
“There is a support crew in the water who are all volunteers. So we have a lead boat and a chase boat kayak is all through the middle jet ski going back and forth.
“Obviously, on a river, there tends to be a few extra hazards here and there. But we mitigate them as best we can. And we’ve never had an issue. I think the most we’ve had is a scraped knee.” The current two time New Zealand Open water champion Alex Dunkley proved too strong for the field, finishing in a time of 49.13. “I managed to work my way down the mighty Waikato. It was good fun. I had a pretty clean swim, I found a pace, stuck at it and it worked.”
Dunkley swam the race around four years ago and decided to make the trip down from Auckland on Sunday morning.
“The river conditions were good, no real problems along the way.”
Julia Borlase successfully defended her title from last year, winning the female race in a time of 55.24, and also mae the tripfrom Auckland.
“It’s very different to open water swimming in the sea, but there’s something special about being able to swim in our rivers.“
“You get to see parts of the bridge you wouldn’t normally get to see. I like to look at the pillars. Last year the river was higher. So I got to see a bit more of them and also the houses on the bank.”
Acket who runs the event with the help of his family hopes to see it grow to around 500 competitors by its 100 year anniversary.