Frome team swim English Channel in under 24 hours

Story posted on January 28, 2014

Creative Aquatic Mini Squad swimmers
Oliver Saunders, Anna Snelgrove, Finlay Saunders, Susie Williams, Jack Green, Ben Green with assistant coach, ex TeamGB Swimmer, Steve Mellor

A TEAM of swimmers from Creative Aquatic in Tytherington recently swam 22 miles as part of the Aspire Channel Swim Challenge, while also achieving their own goal, to complete the swim in under 24 hours. 

The Aspire challenge is to swim 22 miles (the distance of the English Channel) over 12 weeks in a pool, and by committing to the swim participants raise money for the Aspire charity at the same time.

Many of Creative Aquatic’s squad swimmers had attempted the Aspire challenge before, including Oliver Saunders who was the youngest boy ever to complete the challenge solo, aged just six, in 2011; so the team wanted to set themselves a new goal and motivate members who wanted to have a go at the swim for the first time.  Creative Aquatic assistant coach, ex TeamGB swimmer, Steve Mellor set them the challenge – to complete the swim together, as a team, in just one day.

To achieve success the mini squad team collectively swam over 2300 lengths of Creative Aquatic’s 15 metre pool with most swimmers achieving between 1500 and 3000 metres in a single session. The team took less than 24 hours to meet their goal with squad members swimming whenever they could in the allocated timeslot to ensure they completed the challenge.

Steve said, “Over the 24 hours I was enormously proud of the swimmers’ dedication to come to the pool and be so persistent in achieving the goal set for them, they truly did themselves proud.

“The overall objective was to achieve the 22 miles in under 24 hours, but the driving purpose behind this exercise was to raise awareness for the Aspire charity, and the team’s sacrifice was just a small token of our support for a massively worthwhile cause – helping those with spinal injuries.”

Creative Aquatic has been collecting sponsorship for the challenge and hopes to donate £300 to the Aspire charity to help people with spinal injuries. If you would like to make a donation, please call Creative Aquatic reception on 01373 288121.