By Jim Leinonen (Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:18 PM PDT)
Kyle Daniels, second from right, from Redondo Beach, captured the Catalina Classic this past weekend. Other top finishers include: Justin Mitchell, left, from Burleigh Heads, Queensland, Australia fourth; Jamie Mitchell, second from left, also from Queensland; and Sean Richardson from Palos Verdes, right, who finished third.
(photos by Jim Leinonen)
Kyle Daniels of Redondo Beach weathered the swells of the Pacific Ocean and Australia's Jamie Mitchell to win this year's 32-mile Catalina Classic paddleboard race that turned into a two-man duel to the finish at the Manhattan Beach Pier last Sunday.
Daniels, 30, took the lead for good within the last quarter of the race, which was enough to end Mitchell's five-year worldwide unbeaten streak.
“Jamie was unrelenting throughout the whole thing,” said Daniels. “There was never any moment where any one of us were in a clean lead, maybe toward the end.”
Mitchell spoke about where the race was decided.
“Kyle probably got maybe 100 yards on me and then I was trying to catch him from the R10 (buoy) back to the finish,” Mitchell said. “I sort of gained on him a little bit, but then he had the answer.”
It was the second overall victory in the Catalina Classic for Daniels, who won in 2001. He finished the race in 5 hours, 36 minutes, 7 seconds, nearly 20 minutes slower than his first win. In 2001, he won in a time of 5:16:28. Mitchell, 29, of Burleigh Heads, Queensland, Australia, completed the race in 5:38:47.
“It was a battle from the start,” said Daniels. “We pretty much traded the lead for the first hour or so and then I think I may have had him just by a hair. We were even, then I would get a little bit and then he would catch up. There was no commanding lead in this one.”
Daniels also was the fastest in the short board division in 1996 and 1998. Of his five victories, this was his toughest.
“This has a special ring to it,” he said. “Just having the chance to race Jamie and taking my fifth victory is something that I have been long hoping to accomplish.”
Since winning the Catalina Classic in 2002 for the first time, Mitchell had never been beaten. In fact, his last loss was at the Catalina Classic in 1999, when he finished seventh.
“I've had a good run,” said Mitchell. “I can't complain. As I kept saying to everyone, ‘It's going to happen one day and today was the day.' I'm sort of glad it's over so I don't get asked that question anymore.”
Sean Richardson of Palos Verdes, who finished third, spoke about the streak coming to an end. “Jamie's a great competitor, a great sportsman, but somebody had to beat him,” Richardson said. “I'm glad that it was Kyle.”
The Catalina Classic is a special race to Daniels, who is very familiar with the waters, which in that regard gives him a little bit of an advantage.
“I lifeguard here in Manhattan Beach, and have a lot of friends and family. I do have a hometown advantage, I feel. I think a victory without racing Jamie would almost have an asterisk.”
He never felt comfortable down the stretch as he remembered how Mitchell overtook Brian Zeller in 2002 to win the race. When Daniels saw an opening, he knew he had to go for it.
“Jamie's got such a powerful stroke and such a talented paddler, I had to take advantage of every little time I could get. I was getting some runs, the board was just picking up the little bits of bump that I could get and my boat crew was pushing me along. I looked at them and said, ‘Alright this is our time. If were going to do it, we've got to do it now.'”
A small group of paddlers broke from the pack when the race got under way at the Isthmus on Catalina Island at 6 a.m. and a few miles into the race, the paddlers were feeling the wrath of the Pacific.
“This is my seventh year doing it and that's certainly the roughest I've ever seen, northwest wind swell just made it very difficult,” Richardson said. “(It was) slowest time, too, for me, ever.”
“I guess you would say not standard Catalina conditions but everyone has to deal with it,” said Mitchell.
Richardson said the conditions also made it difficult to monitor the competition.
“It's so funny when it's rough like that you have to pay attention to what's going on, on the nose of your board because you're catching runs or you're going to get knocked off,” Richardson said. “It's very unusual in Catalina (Classic), but that's one of the few times where you really can't look around and see what's going on.”
Behind Richardson, a battle developed for fourth as Mitchell's brother, Justin, moved from sixth into fourth in his first Catalina Classic.
“I've got a lot of improvement left in me yet,” said Justin Mitchell, who also finished fourth in the Molokai race, which is a similar distance. “This year, I've been very happy, I've paddled really well. My lead-up to the season wasn't 100 percent, but my racing has been great.”
Daniels commented on the younger Mitchell's finish.
“To come out and get a fourth for his first time is just incredible. He's a great paddler. The brothers Mitchell is a force to reckon with.”
Jamie feels his brother has had a great year to date.
“We haven't had the greatest preparation for Catalina, but no excuses. We turned up and done our best today, and second and fourth is pretty good.”
There was one other big winner on the day when Brian Szymanski, 38, of Cardiff finished first in the short board division. Szymanski was the defending champion and has now won back-to-back victories. “It was great last year. This year was a lot harder. Conditions were really tough the first half of the race. The competition was a little tougher this year, too, so it felt like a good victory.”
He left the Isthmus with the pack of leaders and was never pushed by any of his competition.
“I picked a good line from the start, went out as hard as I could,” he said. “I just went fast as I could for the first five miles.
“A buddy radioed back and found where the other stock guys were. I kind of gapped them out a little bit and felt good about that. Then I kind of started to relax and settle into a rhythm.”
Once he reached the R10, he was far out in front.
“It was a done deal when I got to the R10. I like it like that.”
Rebecca Gilman was the first woman to finish. Gilman used a stock paddleboard and completed the crossing in 7:58:59. Jane Cairns of Santa Barbara finished second in a time of 8:20:34, also on a stock board.
There were 89 competitors and 80 finished the race.
Question: As the summer comes to an end with the Labor Day weekend and the start of a new school year, area districts have been mulling over the results from the most recent round of standardized test results, some are grappling with construction and facilities issues, and one is looking for a permanent superintendent. Still, performances by area schools are strong overall. * What should be the top priorities to improve our local districts?
* Are there areas of concerns that do not get a lot of attention paid to them?
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