The Midmar Mile
The Midmar Mile
The Midmar Mile is the world's largest open water swimming event, a swimming
race held at the Midmar Dam north of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Each year,
it draws thousands of competitors, from serious international athletes and
Olympic medallists to purely recreational swimmers.
It gains its name from the location (Midmar Dam) and the distance (roughly one
mile). A unique feature of the race is that while the distance covered is always
a mile, depending on rainfall and the water levels in the dam, the distance swum
varies from year to year. In years with poor rainfall, competitors are subject
to the infamous Midmar sprint start: a bedlam of bodies sprinting across the
muddy lake-shore and through the shallows until the water is deep enough to
swim.
In order to handle the vast number of competitors, the swimmers swim out in
several groups at two-minute intervals in 8 batches over two days; the group
division is based on a qualifying time in a previous event, with the fastest
group leaving first.
The first ever Midmar Mile was swum on Sunday 10 February 1974 and had 153 swimmers with the youngest being only 10 years old.
Since then it has grown from strength to strength and organisers are now trying set a new World Record for the Guinness Book of Records in 2009 by having 20 000 swimmers.
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