Callan Lötter Goes Back-to-Back at SA Open Water Champs with Triple Title Defence
Callan Lötter continued her dominance of women’s open water swimming by successfully defending all three of her national titles at the Bombela Concession Company SA Open Water Championships, which concluded at Marina Martinique near Jeffreys Bay on Sunday, 8 March, 2026.
The 19-year-old was in a class of her own as she comfortably defended her national 10km, 5km, and 3km knockout titles.
Lötter was the only woman to record a sub two-hour time in the 10km race, winning in 1 hour 59 minutes and 36 seconds, over four minutes in front of the second-placed Hannah Neilson, who finished in 2:03.54. Carli Antonopoulos was close behind for third place in 2:04.51.
“It feels really good. I’m very proud of myself. Last year I just tried to stay with everyone and then take it out at the end. But this year my training has been much better, so I decided to take it out from the beginning and try and hold on and build a gap.”
Triple 2026 SA Open Water Champion, Callan Lötter
Lötter went on to win the 3km knockout a day later when conditions were far from ideal, using the first 1.5km round simply as a warm-up before speeding things up in the 1km and 500m rounds.
The event is run on a knockout basis. After the first round (1.5km), the top 20 athletes proceed to the second round (1km). The top 10 in that race then proceed to the final (500m), with just 10 minutes between each round.
“The race was really good, the conditions were very tough. The waves were picking up quite a lot at the end, so you had to work much harder to finish the race, but I’m happy with how it went.”
The Pretoria swimmer’s next victory of the weekend came in the 5km event on Sunday, which she won in a time of 1:00.23. Neilson was second in 1:00.37 and Marony Jacobs third in 1:02.02.
“I was aware that Hannah was quite close to me on the first three laps and then I saw the rest of the pack was quite far behind, so I just tried to focus on my own race and see how far I could get ahead,” she said.
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Earlier in the weekend, the women’s 3km title was won in 37:25 by Leah Markgraaff, who also took the 7.5km title in 1:33.49.
Original Copy: Karien Jonckheere for Swimming SA, with editing by gsport
Main Photo Caption: Callan Lötter continued her dominance of women’s open water swimming by successfully defending all three of her national titles at the Bombela Concession Company SA Open Water Championships, which concluded at Marina Martinique near Jeffreys Bay on Sunday, 8 March, 2026. Photo: Supplied
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