2nd January, 2005
On a very windy and un-summerlike day on Sunday, we had one of the toughest events on the club calendar, the Groyne to Groyne Beach Sprint.
At 480 metres from one groyne to the other, it's not really a sprint. But it's not really a distance race either, and that's what makes it so tough.
With the south-westerly blowing at about 30 knots, the usual Floreat-to-City course was reversed in the hope of completing the event by lunchtime. Of course, this meant that competitors had to walk all the way back afterwards, which was probably even harder.
The women's event went first, and the field stayed in a tight pack in the early stages. In the second half Kim Lovett cleared out to what looked like an unassailable lead until Penny Cohen slipped into top gear and passed both Jess Richards and Kim to win by two metres.
In the men's race, defending champion Matt Milner started out hard and was playing catch me if you can. The Scarff brothers were trying to pace themselves and come over the top in the last fifty metres, but they left their run too late and Matt held on to win by four metres.
* All placings are subject to members completing patrol and other membership requirements
