Last Saturday morning held a bit of nostalgia for me. Having been a competitive swimmer in a rapidly fading past, I went out to check on the respective talents represented at the Ed Gaw Amelia Island Open Water Challenge, a USMS sanctioned annual event on Main Beach and the DRC Triathlon which was organized on the opposite site of our fabulously long beach at Peters Point.
It was a sporty beautiful morning which attracted 347 triathloners and 68 open water challengers. The news should have mentioned somewhere that it would be better to avoid Fletcher Drive this particular morning, especially at Peter’s Point, as many of the bicyclists and motorists found themselves alternately time stranded, as the sheriff’s office let cars and other traffic go through while competitors had to wait. Understandable dilemma that should have been better addressed as I witnessed one particular cyclist loosing a 1 minute and 47 seconds waiting for traffic to pass. I know because I filmed the whole episode. (I would have been ticked off being fiercely competitive myself). Anyway, the sportsmanship was as exemplary as the results were impressive.
Watch the video and see the spellbinding photo finish of the One Miler at the Open Water Challenge, an event head sponsored by the city of Fernandina Beach and a handful of very community minded businesses and organizations, as the proceeds from this event benefit a program that teaches local children how to swim. Living on an island, I would encourage everyone to learn to swim. Race Director Scott Mikelson supplied me with that information.
While looking to find some more information on Ed Gaw, whom the challenge was named after, especially after meeting Ed Gaw junior and his mom, I was a little disappointed to find that the website www.aiowc.org was not online anymore.
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