KAILUA-KONA — Big Island’s Triple Crown Swim Race Series came to a thrilling conclusion on Saturday with over 250 swimmers taking to the pristine waters of Kailua Bay for the final swim event, Kamakahonu.
The Triple Crown Swim Race Series were comprised of three 1-mile open water swim events organized by Kona Aquatics, Inc. that began with May’s Anaehoomalu Splash, followed by the Hapuna Rough Water Swim in June, and July’s Kamakahonu.
“It’s really exciting,” said Makayla Ward, who is the race co-director of the Triple Crown swim series with Kona Aquatics head coach, Dave Gibson. “I’ve been seeing the amount of youth swimmers participating increase which is really huge and that’s been one of our biggest pushes is to get them more involved and get a really great community feel.”
Gibson added, “This year our overall participation grew by over 29% — the 18 and under participation grew by 66% and our 12 and under racers grew by over 260%. We are very excited about this year’s growth, and a special thanks to our sponsors, donors and volunteers who are the people who really make the races happen.”
While each individual event within the swim series honored overall male and female winners, the ultimate honor of being crowned the Triple Crown champion was reserved for the swimmers who posted the lowest, or fastest, cumulative times among the three qualifying races.
On Saturday, Kamuela’s Brock Imonen and Holualoa’s Kiliheamaikalani Oka blazed through the iconic Kailua Bay race to not only win the male and female Kamakahonu titles with their times of 15 minutes and 51 seconds and 17:43 respectively, but also the prestigious Triple Crown titles.
“It feels really good!” Imonen said of winning the Triple Crown Race Series. “Today’s swim felt really fast. I looked at the time when I came in and it was a lot faster than I expected it to be, so it was a really great swim overall.”
For Imonen, who competes on the men’s UH swim team, it was a clean sweep — winning Anaehoomalu Splash (20:09), the Hapuna Rough Water (20:29), and Kamakahonu (15:51) for a cumulative Triple Crown race series time of 56:30. Imonen said he felt “no pressure” coming into the final event as California’s Alex Kostich, who trailed Imonen in the series by 5 seconds, didn’t compete.
“Alex wasn’t here so it wasn’t like I had to race Alex or anything,” said the 21-year-old senior at UH Manoa. “My coaches on Oahu said to me that it doesn’t matter how important the races are, just go as fast as you can. Coming into this I was ahead. But if there is no one to race then sometimes you might tend to back off a little bit, but I treated it like a race. I wanted to be under 19 minutes and 20 seconds because then I would break the 1-hour barrier for the three races combined — I came in at 15:48. So it was a lot faster than I thought.
“It was a nice swim, nice being able to get into my own head and pushing and focusing on how I was doing, not really having to worry about anything else. I want to thank everyone who has helped out with it. It’s been fun races, everything has been great afterwards, so I want to thank everyone — Eddie-O for announcing, Dave and Makayla for taking it and putting it on — it was so much fun!”
Kamuela’s Kelan Kennedy and Waikoloa’s Nathaniel “X” Rose placed second and third in the Kamakahonu Swim with their times of 16:28 and 16:36 respectively.
On the women’s side, Kiliheamaikalani Oka raced up the sandy beach of Kamakahonu to win the women’s division in a stellar time of 17:43. Her victory secured her spot as the Triple Crown women’s champion as Oka won the Anaehoomalu Splash (22:31) followed by a second-place finish at the Hapuna Rough Water Swim (23:04) for a cumulative Triple Crown race series time of 1:03:19.
Oka, who swims for Kona Aquatics, turned heads from the start of the series being only 13 years of age and a 7th grader at Kealakehe Intermediate School. Even her father, Keola Oka, couldn’t believe that his young daughter won the competitive women’s race at Anaehoomalu Bay.
When asked if her dad now believes she is the Triple Crown women’s champion Oka laughed, “My dad finally believes me now! He didn’t swim today but chose to video me coming out of the water, so yeah, he believes me now!
“It felt so good to beat a lot of people. I don’t want to be mean but I feel so happy I did that! I’m so happy with everyone, but I’m super happy I did that.”
Kamuela’s Noelani Vargas (17:51) and Captain Cook’s Jayden Hall (17:57), kept it close taking the women’s second and third podium spots.
Oka shared that coming into the final race she had a good feeling. She kept focused by thinking about the important people in her life and felt driven to prove to herself that she could do it.
“Going into the first race, I wasn’t sure if I would get even top three,” Oka said. “I felt way more pressure for the second event because I felt I had to beat Jayden (Hall). This one was like, it’s the last one. Then I thought about the people in my life. I thought okay, I got to do this for my mom and dad, I got to do this for my grandpa, I got to do this for me and my family. So today was more about proving to myself that I got this.”
When asked what advice she would share with other youth swimmers who might think winning the Triple Crown Swim Race series is impossible, Oka didn’t hesitate.
“There’s a lot of people who wonder how I am able to swim a mile at my age. It looks long when you look at it, but when you swim, it feels really short and easy. I know a lot of other kids on my team could totally beat me at this race. I would tell them don’t stop swimming, even at age 13 because they are bored of it. Just keep working at it as one day, they just might surprise themselves like I did.”
