Swimming: Cafe A'fare cook up storm in relay

Whangarei Aquatic centre.

The team at Cafe A'fare can add swimming to their list of culinary achievements after winning the Whangarei Business House Relay annual event held at CLM Whangarei Aquatics this year.

The Business House Swim Relay took place in CLM pools throughout the country and worked a little differently from a normal relay.

Each workplace team of four swimmers (and one reserve swimmer) were given the opportunity to swim a 4/100m relay on a weekly basis for seven weeks in total. The top six times would be combined in order to come up with the final time.

Cafe A'fare won the Business House award with a time of 32 minutes and 21 seconds and each swimmer was awarded with a one month facility membership.

Second place went to the Northern Advocate team which comprised of photographer John Stone, reporter Kristin Edge, chief executive Greg Alexander, sports reporter Cameron Leslie and freelance reporter Lucy Mullinger with a total time of 35 minutes and 29 seconds.

The most improved team went to Te Roopu Kimiora with a time improvement of over three minutes in one swim. The individual award went to Rae Smith and the Champion of Champions prize went to RIP Super Supers, a team of lifeguards from the pool who swam the event in 28 minutes and 16 seconds.

Another team of note was Sweat7 with an elapsed time of 28 minutes and 54 seconds. The team was led by Northland triathlete Sam Warriner and was placed fourth in the country.

Event organiser Tony Carne says the event went without a hitch and was a great example of how keen Northlanders were to get fit for summer. "There were some amazing time improvements and we look forward to seeing new teams competing this time next year."