Knight Wins a Record Eighth La Jolla Rough Water Swim

LA JOLLA —  They insist these times are meaningless and can’t, like track, be compared from year to year. Try telling that to the wound-up crowd that lined La Jolla Cove on Sunday.

For seven consecutive years, Del Mar’s Beth Knight has made the La Jolla Rough Water Swim her pet project. Not only has she won her age group every year, she consistently is the overall fastest woman, with times closer to the top men.

Knight had been on an emotional roller-coaster, brought on by the death of her brother, for two weeks. So she wasn’t sure No. 8 looked as promising. Yet there she was Sunday afternoon, leading the women’s masters race and poised to break the 20-minute mark for the one-mile swim for the first time.

Just missed it.

Knight, 32, couldn’t quite pull herself out of the water, through the sand, and across the finish line for a sub-20 minute finish, so she settled for 20 minutes, 4 seconds.

“If I had known I was that close, I probably would have started sprinting a little sooner,” said Knight, who was tied with Florence Chadwick for the most victories in the swim before Sunday.

“It’s something no one else has done, so there’s some significance in winning No. 8. It’s nice.”

The closest masters swimmer to Knight was Irvine’s Donna Freidman, 29, (21:30), but Encinitas resident, Kari Lydersen, was closer to Knight’s mark, with an unofficial time of 20:34. Lydersen, a junior at San Dieguito High, won the women’s amateur AA division for the second consecutive year.

Another back-to-back winner whose name is beginning to circulate around San Diego is Gerry Rodriguez, who is three for three here. He also won in 1988.

For the second consecutive year, it almost came down to a footrace between Santa Monica’s Rodriguez, 28, and Menlo Park’s Bari Weick, 30, who finished in 20:32 and 20:36, respectively.

One-two winners (masters and fastest overall) last year, Weick made a last-ditch attempt to pass Rodriguez with 15-yards left in the race.

“He took a good yank on my heels,” Rodriguez said with a laugh.

Rodriguez is more serious about making a career out of open-water swimming, which he said he has managed to do the last two years.

He has his own summer series of ocean swims called “The Great Beach Challenge,” which concludes next weekend in Huntington Beach and is worth approximately $60,000 in products and services. There are three races this summer and Rodriguez plans to add a race here in San Diego next year.

“There’s a great tradition in long distance swimming down here,” said Rodriguez, who has won 12 of his 14 rough water swims this summer.

“We’re trying to figure out where to go with (the sport). I want to see people walk away with more than a $3 medal.”

Although Rodriguez would like to see rough-water swimming become a money-making endeavor for more athletes than himself, not everyone agrees that it can, or that they want it to.

“I think people like to see the top male sprinters,” Knight said. “Someone may pay a couple of sprinters $20,000 to go head-to-head in a race, but I don’t know about anything else. For me, it would have to be a substantial amount. I’m not saying I’d laugh at $500, but they’d have to make it worth it.”

La Mesa’s Matt Buckley, a Helix graduate and UCLA junior, said he’s looking toward a successful college year and not banking on a future as an open-water swimmer.

“It would be fun,” said Buckley, winner of the men’s amateur 19-over division. “But I don’t think you could ever make that much money to support yourself from it.”

Swim Notes

Speed racers: Tim Marvey of Corona del Mar, 37, was surprised to hear his posted time for the rough-water swim was 19:23, which would have given him the overall fastest time of the day. Oops. Due to a timing error, the 35-39 and 40-44 men’s masters events were all recorded 32 seconds too fast and the 45-49 divisions on up were posted 72 seconds too fast . . . It was reunion time for Chuck Johnson, 71, of Arlington, Va. Johnson won the junior men’s event in 1932, when he was 12. Johnson returned to San Diego for the first time this year and finished second in the 70-74 category . . . Masters divisions attracted the bulk of the 1,162 entries in Sunday’s swim; the men generated 461 entries and the women had 283 participants.