John Bish was the overall winner of the 2-mile ocean swim while Ryan Wenger took the crown in the East Beach Biathlon at the Semana Nautica summer sports festival on Saturday.
Mallory Mead was the first women’s finisher in the swim and Chrissy Faulding was the one and only woman to cross the finish line in the run-swim biathlon.
Bish, 17, is a member of the Dos Pueblos High swim team and won this event with a time of 40:19 for the first time in his Semana Nautica career. He won the mile swim on Thursday during the Reef & Run series.
“I’ve been wanting to win this one for years,” Bish said. “We haven’t had this since COVID started, so this was definitely something I wanted to check off my bucket list.”
Bish said some of the motivation to finish first comes from his sister, Andrea Bish, who was the first female to finish in the one-mile swim in 2018. Andrea finished in fifth place overall and second place for women in Saturday’s two miler.
“My sister has won for the women, so there was a little sibling rivalry there,” John said.
Mead finished with a time of 43:23, which was fourth overall in the competition.
Tony Sholl, the aquatics supervisor for the City of Santa Barbara, commented on the competitiveness of the race.
“The two-mile race came down to the wire,” Sholl said. “It was great to see that competition after missing that for a couple of years.”
In the biathlon, Wenger paced the group with a time of 46:34 while Faulding finished with a time of 50:31, which was third overall.
In total, 60 athletes finished the two-mile swim while six completed the biathlon.
“It was a great day out on the water with some great events,” Sholl said. “We love having these events back in Santa Barbara.”
Sunday’s schedule at East Beach has the Mullen and Henzell 3-mile ocean swim, the Swim-Run-Swim-Run-Swim-Run-Swim-Run event and the CBVA Men’s Open Volleyball Tournament.
The Santa Barbara Open tennis tournament also will be going on at several courts in the community. On Sunday, the men’s and women’s singles semifinals along with the women’s doubles final will be held at Knowlwood Tennis Club at 2 p.m.
The full events schedule can be found on the Semana Nautica website.