Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Olympian Mandy Loots emerged smiling from the Midmar Dam as part of the Pink Drive that has passed the R1,000,000 fundraising target at the 2015 aQuellé Midmar Mile in Pietermaritzburg.

Similarly, the 8 Mile Club, those swimmers who completed all 8 mile races at South Africa’s Midmar Mile – surged past the R1,000,000 mark.

A major benefactor from the funds raised is the Pink Drive where top South African swimmers like Melissa Corfe and Ashley Hogg participate to join the cause. Hogg was the first to emerge from the water on all three occasions of the first 3 heats of today’s Midmar Mile.

As Hogg came up the slipway to the finish, Owen Scheftz had other ideas at the slipway.

Scheftz got down on one knee at the finish and asked Tracy Helps to marry him. “We’ve been engaged for a while already but Owen just never proposed,” explained Helps. “I never expected any of this though.”

“I’d been planning this for four or five months now. I wanted it to be special for us and swimming is what brought us together so I thought this was the right setting,” added Scheftz.

The aQuellé Midmar Mile takes place annually at the Midmar Dam just outside Howick in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. For more information, visit here.

Photos courtesy of Gameplan Media.

Copyright © 2015 by World Open Water Swimming Association