Chelmsford Challenge’s 30th anniversary

Newcastle’s largest swimming event and one of the country’s largest open-water swimming events turned 30 on Saturday, January 31.

The Chelmsford Challenge, organised by Champ Marketing, had its largest ever turnout with more than 100 participants in the men’s 1000 metre challenge alone.

The event’s categories allowed all ages and included 3000, 1000 and 500 metre swimming challenges.

Overall winners of the different categories were Sheryl Anne Grobler, who won the 3000 merte challenge for men and women, Abigail Pieters, winning the women’s 1000 metre challenge and South African open-water champion, Chad Ho, who participated in and won the men’s 1000 metre challenge, completing the event in an impressive 11 minutes and 15 seconds.

Mr Ho commented said the challenge was an excellent warm up for next week’s Midmar Mile.

Having completed a 3 000 metre event in just more than 33 minutes, Mr Ho is no stranger to posting blistering times in the open water circuit.

“On average, I train swimming up to ten-thousand metres a day. I have to push my endurance all the time.” With the upcoming Midmar Mile, the most gruelling swimming event in the country, Mr Ho will be looking to push himself even further as he defends his title of fastest in the water for the fifth time running.

Organiser of the event, Champ Marketing, thanked the main sponsors of the Chelmsford Challenge, namely Newcastle Municipality, KFC and Vlam Panelbeaters.

“We are glad with the turn-out of the event. Many schools entered, and we had a resounding success with the supporters as well. Next year, we hope to make it even bigger, and are looking at the possibilities of hosting the challenge on a Sunday, so we can have more community involvement,” said managing director of Champ Marketing, Johan Pieters.