2025 aQuellé Midmar Mile
- February 6th – February 9th
- KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Open Water
- SwimSwam Preview
- Meet Site
- Results
The 52nd edition of the aQuellé Midmar Mile took place this weekend in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Sharon van Rouwendaal, the two-time Olympic open water swimming champion from the Netherlands, originally confirmed her participation in the open women’s race but wound up competing in the women’s 31-40 age category.
31-year-old van Rouwendaal topped that podium with ease, clocking a final time of 20:15.
Van Rouwendaal won the women’s 10k swim at the 2016 Olympic Games, earned silver in the event in Tokyo at the postponed 2020 Games and upgraded to gold once again at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
She was the Midmar Mile champion in 2023 but opted out last year.
The open women’s race saw South Africa’s Catherine van Rensburg get it done for gold while New Zealand’s Louis Clark earned gold on the men’s side.
Van Rensburg’s outing represented her first-ever appearance at the Midmar Mile.
“This is my first Midmar race so I’m so happy with it,” said Van Rensburg afterwards. “The conditions were a little bit choppy but I just pushed through. Callan and I are best friends so we swim together the whole time and we just tried to push each other to see how far we could get.”
Clark is no stranger to the podium, having won the 5k title at the New Zealand Open Water Championships.
“I got to about the last gate [1200m] and thought I’m feeling pretty good, I think it’s time to go so I put the foot down and tried to leave everybody and it worked and I held on for dear life at the end so it was good,” said Clark afterward.
Quotes courtesy of Midmar Mile.
Top 10 women:
- Catherine van Rensburg – 19:49
- Callan Lotter – 20:06
=3 Stephanie Houtman – 20:32
=3 Ruby Heath – 20.32 - –
- –
- Kirsty Andraos – 22:09
- Zuria Venter – 22:09
- Katie-Peta Marcelino – 22:12
- Megan Shepherd – 22:13
- Cassidy Sinclair – 22:14
- Taylor Kassebaum – 22:14
Top 10 men:
- Louis Clark – 19:07
- Henre Louw – 19:09
- Matthew Caldwell – 19:12
- Ruan Breytenbach – 19:15
- Connor Albertyn – 19:16
- Sven van der Linde – 19:20
- Barnard Wolfaardt – 19:56
- Damien Angel – 20:26
- Reino von Wielligh – 20:29
- Jedrick James Geleta – 20:29
