2.7km Fiji Swim - Beachcomber Island

Saturday 15 August 2009

Swimmers take their positions

Swimmers assemble on the sand bar

The 2.7km swim begins on the tiny Nukuasiga Sandbar to which we ferry all swimmers once they have registered on Beachcomber Island. From the start on the sandbar swimmers head out into the channel separating it from Treasure Island and Beachcomber crossing the fringing reefs a number of times before the course takes you back to Beachcomber Island.

This is our more competitive solo swim with the top nine swimmers in 2006 finishing within two and a half minutes of each other. The 2006 race was won by one of the all time greats of swimming Danyon Loader from New Zealand (2 gold medals, Atlanta 1996), while Shane Gould (3 gold medals, Munich, 1972) was first home of the women. 2007 was the first time a female swimmer was the fastest around the course with Trudee Hutchinson from Brisbane (Aust) beating Darrin Jones from Sydney (Aust) and Natalie Coughlin from San Francisco (USA) with only six seconds seperating the top three.