Callan Lötter continued her dominance of women’s open water swimming by successfully defending all three of her national titles at the SA Open Water Championships at Marina Martinique near Jeffreys Bay over this past weekend.

The 19-year-old swimmer from Pretoria was in a class of her own as she comfortably defended her national 10km, 5km, and 3km knockout titles.

Lötter was the only woman to record a sub two-hour time in the 10km race, winning in 1 hour 59 minutes and 36 seconds, over four minutes in front of the second-placed Hannah Neilson from Cape Town, who finished in 2:03.54. Another Pretoria swimmer, Carli Antonopoulos, was third in 2:04.51.

“It feels really good. I’m very proud of myself. Last year I just tried to stay with everyone and then take it out at the end. But this year my training has been much better, so I decided to take it out from the beginning and try and hold on and build a gap,” Lötter explained.

The young star from TuksSwimmig went on to win the 3km knockout a day later when conditions were far from ideal, using the first 1.5km round simply as a warm-up before speeding things up in the 1km and 500m rounds.

This event is run on a knockout basis. After the first round (1.5km), the top 20 athletes proceed to the second round (1km). The top 10 in that race then proceed to the final (500m), with just 10 minutes between each round.

Lötter’s next victory of the weekend came in the 5km event on Sunday, which she won in a time of 1:00.23. Neilson was second in 1:00.37 and Marony Jacobs third in 1:02.02.

In the men’s events, the Pretoria natives also dominated matters once again. It was Henré Louw (TuksSwimming) who took top honours in the 10km marathon swim, after a thrilling sprint finish. He claimed the title in 1 hour 54 minutes and 46 seconds, just one second ahead of Byron Kimber from Ekhuruleni, with another Pretoria resident, Connor Albertyn, third in 1:54.55.

“It was definitely a tough race. The strategy was just to sit back a bit this year and try and let the other guys do a little bit of work and then just try my best at the back end of the race,” Louw said afterwards.

Louw had to settle for fourth place in the 5km event, which proved to be another massive battle between the leading bunch. This time it was Albertyn who came out on top in 57:26 with Matthew Caldwell finishing second two seconds later and Kimber third, in 57:30.

“It was a very tough race. From the start to the finish, it was just go from everyone. I don’t think there was a moment in that race when we were all fully relaxed,” Albertyn concluded.

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