Durban - As thousands of swimmers and their families arrived in KZN this week for the 2022 aQuelle Midmar Mile, the granddaughter and grandson of late Independent Media sports journalist, Tommy Ballantyne, are swimming their mile in his honour.
Ballantyne, 88, died unexpectedly on December 31, 2021, as result of complications from Covid-19.
Amelie, 15, and Jess Webber, 13, first swam with their grandfather seven years ago.
Ballantyne’s daughter Tammy Webber said this week that the pair had been preparing with their schools (St Therese’s and Michaelhouse) for this year’s swim.
Webber said when Amelie and Jess first swam with her dad in 2014, Jess was one of the youngest swimmers to race while Ballantyne was one of the oldest.
Described as a sports journalist, athlete, storyteller and adventurer, Webber said her father covered the epic Midmar Mile as a sports journalist for 25 years. Independent on Saturday readers knew him for his thorough previews highlighting the main contenders, and for his column, Tommy’s Tidings, which ran for many years.
“It was his highlight every year when he would cover it for the Sunday Tribune and Mercury and at the age of 70, he decided to join in and swam his first crossing.
“He managed 14 Midmars with his last being at the age of 85. He trained solidly for several months before each swim, diligently racking up the lengths in the gym pool and readying himself mentally,” she said.
Webber said once her father started taking part in the race, “he would swim, run up and get dry and get his notebook and head off to get quotes, working in the makeshift media tent”.
”For my kids, the Midmar Mile was the big highlight of the year and this year, Amelie and Jess are swimming in honour of their incredible grandfather. He was humble enough not to care whether he could finish in time and his grandchildren saw that however old you are, you can compete and that it wasn’t about winning, but about taking part.”
Ballantyne was born in Scotland but grew up in Colombia before returning to Scotland to finish high school.
His family moved to South Africa when he was 18 and he went to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) where he taught science at St George’s College for 25 years.
He was a keen soccer player and wrote a column on football for the Zimbabwe Herald which sparked his career in journalism. On moving to SA in 1984, he took up the post of recreational sports editor at the Sunday Tribune. He also did a dance column for the Tonight entertainment pages.
“He had four daughters and we all did dancing, he had so many strings to his fiddle,” said Webber.
She said her favourite memories were of her father with his camera and shock of white hair, rushing out on his motorbike, covering all the major sports events such as the Dusi and Comrades marathons, as well as Midmar Mile and many surfing events ‒ but he also covered school sports and many lesser known sports.
“He had a passion for all sport and loved being part of the wider community. He was not a journalist who would sit on the phone, but he’d be out in the helicopter covering the Dusi, jumping on the back of the Comrades truck or on the back of a surfski with Oscar Chalupsky.
“He had a love of all things active and a genuine interest in people and their stories,” said Webber.
Ballantyne only retired from writing at age 84, and Webber said her father “was a newspaperman to the last. Every day he would get the newspaper and read it from front to back and do the crossword”.
Midmar Mile race director Wayne Riddin said Ballantyne “always had a smile on his face”.
“Tommy happened to always jump on my boat for those two main races and he always used to be the one to capture the times for the top three at each of the hotspots and he did that every year.
“He was really someone special, he gave a lot back to the event, not just writing about it. He started swimming it at 70 years old and did 15 in a row. He always came here very fit and also did stories, so from the journalism side, certainly one of the most popular,” said Riddin.
The aQuelle Midmar Mile which takes place over four days started on Thursday, and includes two days for charity swims and two for the main events. The organisers said all Covid-19 safety measures were in place.
The Independent on Saturday