2018 RCP Tiburon Mile
- August 18th, 2018
- Bay Area, California
- Full Results (Including Age Group & Wetsuit Divisions)
The 2018 edition of the RCP Tiburon Mile is the 17th version of the annual open water swim in the San Francisco area where elite and recreational open water enthusiasts alike take to the water for a one-mile race between Angel Island and Tiburon at the entrance to the bays that give the region its name.
After no Tiburon Mile was held in 2017, the race returned for 2018, and Ashley Twichell won her 4th-straight Tiburon Mile women’s elite title.
This year’s race was a particularly fast year, and Twichell finished in 21:56, which was over 3 minutes ahead of her pace from the 2016 race.
Twichell was so fast, in fact, that she almost beat all of the men’s competitors, instead of the usual ‘most of them.’ She finished just a few steps (the Tiburon mile finishes with a very short run through the finish line) behind Zane Grothe, who won Pan Pacs gold in the 800 and silver in the 1500 in Tokyo two weeks ago, and has now twice dipped his toe into open waters (he also swam the 10k at Pan Pacs).
A video of the finish, with Twichell in the blue cap in the lead pack with the men:
They told me this was a swimming race #SCNotTop10 pic.twitter.com/0Y1HwD9dZn
— Zane Grothe (@zane_growth_ee) August 19, 2018
Twichell was only another few seconds behind the men’s race winner Ferry Weertman of the Netherlands, who completed the mile 1st in 21:50, ahead of US National Teamer David Heron (21:51) and Ricardo Vargas (21:52). Earlier this month, Weertman won the European Championships in both the 10km open water swim and the team open water swim.
In addition to the winners, there were a few fun entries in the elite classification. That includes Kelsey Ditto, a former Stanford and Georgia All-American in the distance freestyle races and the 2010 Pac 10 Scholar Athlete of the Year; and Dutch sprinter Ranomi Kromowidjojo, the 5th-fastest woman ever over 50 meters.
Besides the elite competition, there were winners declared by age group, in both wetsuit and non-wetsuit competitions. The whole event was designed to race money for the charity Lifehouse, which has served the developmentally disabled since 1954. A mile is about 1609 meters, so needless to say Kromowidjojo didn’t place as highly here as she normally does in the 50, but it’s still fun to see athletes outside of their comfort zones.
Elite Race Results
Women’s mile – Top 10
- Ashley Twichell, 21:56
- Becca Mann, 22:09
- Rachele Bruni, 22:14
- Martina Dememme, 22:18
- Caroline Jousse, 22:46
- Steffanie Gillespie, 23:37
- Arianna ridi, 23:38
- Ceri Edwards, 26:29
- Kelsey Ditto, 27:13
- Ranomi Kromowidjojo, 27:25
Men’s mile
- Ferry Weertman, 21:50
- David Heron, 21:51
- Ricardo Vargas, 21:52
- Zane Grothe, 21:56
- Alex Meyer, 23:26
- Akira Iomvardas, 23:40
- Michael Sheil, 23:44
- Gavin McGee, 23:51
- Sean Percin, 25:00
- Bobby Yribarren, 25:34
Watchin and making sure the female does not beat pan pac champ, Zane crawled to the finish line!
Watching Grothe’s video of the finish… it gives “front crawl” a whole new meaning.
I think Ashley would have beat Zane if she wasn’t laughing at his attempt to run on land as they were trying to get out.
Yeah, that was funny
Drafting can be a big factor in OW. I’m guessing she put a lot of energy into her start to stay on those guys feet and stayed there the rest of the race
… except that she was in the lead overall for a large part of the race. Including near the beginning.
If you recall, she did the same thing at the Midmar Mile this spring… only the boys and the girls didn’t swim together so everyone chalked it up to the “waters being rougher” for the second race. Not so.
I don’t see the big deal. Should we hold her to a higher pedestal because she’s a woman?? I thought we all wanted equality? This should be a normal thing. I say get rid of speration between sexes and we all compete together!
Unpopular opinion: I say, give it time. Swimming itself is a very young sport and womens swimming is even more undeveloped. I think that eventually, womens swimming will catch up and it could become (at the very least comparable) between all sexes!
weak troll (hopefully) gotta say..
and btw its comparable already
Not an attempt at trolling, but clearly an unpopular opinion. Is mens swimming and womens swimming really comparable? As long as we keep training women to have the mindset that they can’t do what guys do in training or in competition, we will keep holding them back. People like Katie prove it’s possible, and others will eventually follow suit. But you have seriously got to be trolling me if you truly believe it’s close to comparable right now.
please tell me this is the Justin Wright that just won the 200 fly at Nationals
I would love to see a 1 mile race be an Olympic race. I am a huge open water fan, but it is tough to watch a 10 or 25 k on tv
feeling the same here ….
Lemme fix that for you.
She finished just a few “steps” behind Zane Grothe.
Boom, nailed it.
One step, to be even more precise 😉
She was pretty nonchalant on the finish too. If she’d just thrown a few elbows, she could have finished a few places ahead.