Courtesy of WOWSA, Manhattan Island, New York.
The Bridges Manhattan Island Swim, a 45.9 km circumnavigation swim around Manhattan Island in New York City, always attracts a personable group of athletes.
This weekend’s group of 15 swimmers included swimmers from the United States, Romania, the Canary Islands, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Mexico and the UAE.
They included coaches and TV personalities, logistics entrepreneurs and fitness consultants, who train from huge metropolitan cities to small towns.
Two of them – Paul Georgescu from Romania and Andy Ortega García from Mexico completed the swim to achieve the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.
New York Open Water reported, “Despite the full moon, the Hudson River’s currents were sluggish and a strong southerly wind created plenty of wind-against-current chop.” These conditions made the times a bit slower than expected, but the group still went 15-for-15.
57-year-old executive John Muenzer, who swam his first marathon swim in 1983 when he set a Lake Erie record in a 32-mile crossing from Canada to the USA in 35 hours 55 minutes, recalled, “It was a great experience. The Hudson River was waiting for us. It was a very difficult transition from the Harlem into the Hudson and down to the finish. There was head-on chop and the water was going hard underneath in the opposite direction. I remember asking myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’“
Pier A Start/Finish August 25th Results
1. Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist 8:01:44
2. Paul Georgescu 8:03:37
3. Valerie Teany 8:10:11
4. Andy Ortega García 8:20:25
5. Juan Jose Caselles Lopez 9:11:23
6. Giuseppe D’Alessandro 9:14:43
7. Philip Hoyland 9:19:52
8. John Muenzer 9:22:31
9. Graham Walton 9:23:58
10. Estefania Gomez Counahan 9:26:06
11. Kimberly Plewa 9:26:15
12. Hayley Barnard 9:27:35
13. Karina Almanza 9:42:18
14. Peter Mostacci 9:43:21
15. Crispin Thorold 10:18:56
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