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We just spoke to Barry Lewin who was on the beach of St. Marteen Island in the Caribbean Netherlands Antilles... He had just won the 24.5km Souliga Challenge in a record time (by 12 seconds) of 1:54.
(Later: Barry snatched a few minutes before prizegiving to send us these photos.)
 Barry Lewin about 30min into the race
Side-on wind
Apart from the lee of the island at the start, the race was all deep water, with a refreshing trade wind - blowing side on.
"The wind was a blessing," Barry said. "As it was, the temperature was around 28C. Without the wind it would have been into the 30s and much harder."
There were runs off the tops of the swells, but otherwise not much help. Navigation was easy - with two islands along the way giving direction to the paddlers.
 About 40min from the finish...
Benoit Leroux - 2nd
French marathon paddler Benoit Leroux came second while local favourite Ffrank Fifals missed a buoy and dropped from 3rd to 5th when he went back to round it.
"Benoit paddled really well," Barry said. "He stuck with me for a couple of km when I dropped him and quickly made about two minutes on him. But he then matched my pace until about 10km out when I opened the gap to 5min."
Barry broke the existing course record by 12secs. "It wasn't really record breaking weather," he said, "so it was a good record to break!"
 Benoit Leroux (2nd), Barry Lewin (1st), Frank Fifils (5th)
US Champs
Barry said that he's feeling good for next weekend's US Champs in San Francisco. "I didn't blow myself completely today," he said. "I'll recover in the next day or so and I'm in great shape for next weekend. It's a bonus that it's a relatively short flight from here - 7 hours and only 3 hours time change. From SA the flight is a real killer."
"I had a great race," he said, "and next year, if they get the calender right, I'd like to do this race and the Guadaloupe race before going on to the US Champs."
More news
Barry has promised us more news and some photos in a couple of hours... stay tuned!
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