2026 aQuellé Midmar Mile
- Saturday, February 7th & Sunday, February 8th
- KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Open Water
- Meet Site
- Results
The 53rd annual aQuellé Midmar Mile took place this weekend in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with Callan Lötter and Matthew Caldwell crowned the women’s and men’s champions, respectively.
Caldwell stopped the clock at 18:32 to keep runner-up Henre Louw at bay. Louw settled for silver in 18:42 and Connor Albertyn rounded out the elite podium in 18:44.
“I just needed to be as wide as possible, not close to anyone. I just didn’t want to be in sight. I wanted to be like an invisible person swimming there. So the plan was just swim my own race in clean water,” Caldwell explained of his tactics.
“It’s lovely. I’ve been wanting this for a few years now… Henré, myself and Connor on the podium, that’s perfect, that’s how it should be – South Africa on top.”
Meanwhile, in the women’s race, Lötter mastered the rough conditions perfectly and made her move early. She was already well out in front by the 400m mark and continued to stretch the gap to the chasing pack. By halfway, the 19-year-old was 12 seconds in front and she had extended that lead to 19 seconds by the final marker at 1200m. She eventually reached the finish in 19 minutes 51 with the battle for second and third heating up behind her.
Stephanie Houtman, the 2022 gold medalist, wrangled up silver in 20:02 and Carli Antonopoulos bagged bronze in 20:07.
“My plan was to go out comfortable and see where the rest of the people were, and if they went out fast, I would try and stay with them. And then my plan was only to start building from 400m onwards,” said Lötter afterwards.
“It feels really good. It just shows that my training has been working and I’m really happy with how I performed today,” she added, paying tribute to her coach, Troyden Prinsloo.
“Troy has helped me a lot and given me the confidence and made me enjoy the sport again.”
Among those joining the charity challenge were two-time Olympic gold medallist in open water swimming Sharon van Rouwendaal of the Netherlands and South Africa’s own Chad le Clos, who completed eight miles over the two days in support of his own foundation.
“I didn’t expect it to be that hard, the first six, if I’m being honest, but today was amazing. We did two today and six yesterday. I think just in general, the team was amazing. We had 27 people this year,” he explained, adding that the funds raised for the Chad le Clos Foundation each year are being put to great use.
“It’s huge. We’ve helped a lot of kids, especially in Cape Town in the township of Gugulethu, and the Blue Downs community, we support the Olive Tree Foundation. There are also a couple of swimmers we help breaking into the national team.”
Quotes courtesy of aQuellé Midmar Mile
Top 10 results
Elite women:
- Callan Lötter – 19:51
- Stephanie Houtman – 20:02
- Carli Antonopoulos – 20:07
- Kirsty Andraos – 21:12
- Kiara Banks – 21:14
- Sasha-Lee Hemmens – 21:15
- Zuria Venter – 21:15
- Samantha Randle – 21:42
- Megan Shepherd – 21:47
- Leah Markgraaff – 21:51
Elite men
- Matthew Caldwell – 18:32
- Henré Louw – 18:42
- Connor Albertyn – 18:44
- Damien Joly – 18:51
- Sven van der Linde – 19:27
- Wian Bartleman – 19:42
- Carter Markgraaff – 19:45
- James Kewley – 19:47
- Luan Terblanche – 19:52
- Shane van der Linde – 19:56
