Australians dominated the men’s race at the 2016 Waikiki Roughwater swim with Ollie Signorini and Jarrod Poort going 1-2, but local university swimmer Cherelle Oestringer topped the women’s race.
Signorini topped Poort by just over 30 seconds to win the 2.3-mile event. Signorini was the only swimmer to crack one hour, going 59:48 for the title. Poort, coming off
On the women’s side, Oestringer crushed the competition, going 1:08:46 to win by almost three minutes. In the overall results, Oestringer beat all but 8 of the men in a race with 446 total finishers.
2016 marks a return for the event, which was canceled last year due to strong surf and currents. The weather again threatened the event, with Hurricane Lester rolling through the Pacific, but Lester was downgraded to a tropical storm on Saturday night and moved further away from the Hawaiian islands.
That opened the door for a comeback for the event, which had previously taken place every year dating back to 1970. This, considered the 47th Annual event, spans a bay on Hawaii’s famous Waikiki Beach and took place on Monday morning, local time.
You can find full results of the event here.
The meet website with past years’ results and more is here.
Here’s a short video of the men’s finish, courtesy of KAATSU Global on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myq3pNkQ0LM
Might be worth remembering that the 300 pulled from the water were not thinking what a great and successful event it was. For those that are just plodders but trained to swim that distance were never going to complete it with that current. It was simply not good enough to tell everyone the current was strong as they were about to jump in the water. If the conditions were monitored correctly and the current measured properly, the simple solution would be to say “OK race is going to start at 9.30 and from the Hilton to Diamond Head. Get yourselves to the finish line for a 9.30 start”
First time swimmer in WRS from Australia and my time was way off what I anticipated
Was the currents really bad this year or is that just normal for the race. I thought I swam back to sore enough but looking back now it was not enough. Did anyone come back in to the back of the surf and if so how were the currents.
Dear Friends – given what happened to the race I have some suggestions. I was able to finish, in part because I’ve done it 10 times. The instructions at the start were confusing: “best conditions in decades”, then “current pushing you towards Diamond Head” all in 5 minutes. “Don’t pay attention to the yellow buoys”. – really? The markings for the race this year were severely inadequate. This could be solved by adding a small pole with a flag on each buoy so it could be seen above large swells. I assisted and was assisted by other swimmers who could site the buoys a various times. In short: more and larger course buoys. And a big shout out to all… Read more »
Meanwhile, Alex Kostich was 2nd in the men’s race. He’s 46 y/o ! And he’s placed in the top ten 24 times.
sorry, I meant: Alex K placed 3rd.
Go Cherelle!! Go Bows!!