Photo Gallery Below!

This year marked the 10th annual DownRiver Rip, which sold out in record time! We were thrilled to see 75 swimmers take on the challenge and start the summer off on a high note.

One of Richmond’s premier open water events, the DownRiver Rip is a 4.4-mile open water swimming race. Swimmers start from Watkins Landing and swim straight down river, with the current, to Robious Landing Park for an in-water finish. With proceeds going towards our Learn-To-Swim program, which provides cost-free lessons to second graders in the Richmond region, we could not be more thankful to each and every swimmer that made a donation by competing.

With a notable drought over the last few months, the river conditions created a more challenging course than typical as the river sat around 4ft and was running at 1.85 KCS with water temps in the mid-to-high 60s. This made for a very clear river, but not as strong a push compared to years past.

James Crabb finished first overall, marking a multi-year sweep as he has won the event every year that he has competed. Jason Fox finished second, and Denise Letendre rounded out the podium finishing third overall and first on the women’s side. Age Group/ Division results are as follows:

Non-Wetsuit Category
Youth
Women: Chloe Balas & Bailey Pennington

Pups
Men: James Crabb
Women: Emily Rotert

Hammerheads
Men: Jason Fox
Women: Denise Letendre

Masters
Men: Ryan Dash
Women: Margaret Pizer

Grand Masters
Men: Chris Stevenson
Women: Val Van Horn Pate

Wetsuit Category
Pups
Men: John Liedle
Women: Leanne Su

Hammerheads
Men: Matthew Strom
Women: Allison Pugh

Masters
Men: Bryan Hoff
Women: Ingrid Mercer

Grand Masters
Men: Mitch Saks
Women: Barbara Hichak

For full results, click HERE