Clifton old boy Connor Buck defends Midmar Mile title

14 February 2023

The world’s largest open water swimming event, the aQuellé Midmar Mile, took place on the weekend of 11 and 12 February, and there was plenty to smile about for Clifton as old boy, Connor Buck, captured the open honours for the second year in succession.

From the start, he threw down a challenge to the rest of the field, powering to the front. As happens surprisingly often in the Midmar Mile, though, he struggled with his racing line at one point, but managed to rectify his error and then extend his advantage over his chasers to race away to a dominating victory.

Afterwards, Buck said he struggled sighting the buoys because he is a little colour-blind. Instead, he needed to focus on the big white tent that sat alongside the finishing area.

Clear-cut winner

Buck stopped the clock in 17 minutes and 39 seconds, a cavernous 55 seconds clear of the runner-up Henré Louw, while third went to Buck’s training partner, Brendan Visser of DHS, who surprised by coming out of the unseeded swimmers to take third, just ahead of Ross Hartigan.

“I was just aiming to swim as fast as I possibly could and hope for the best,” Buck said, “so it feels good.”

Current Clifton schoolboy, Damien Angel, enjoyed an excellent swim, finishing in ninth place overall in 19:09.

Eight Mile challenge

Kristian Müller swam all eight miles over the course of Saturday and Sunday. His total time was 3:44:37, which was the 14^th best, and ninth among males, for those who took on the mammoth challenge.

Clifton had a podium finisher in the under-13 age group, with Nicholas Taylor coming home in third place in 21:43. Meanwhile, another top achievement was recorded by Jose Cardoso, with the grade 6 learner completing four miles.