News

Over 7,000 swimmers so far for this year's Aspire Channel Swim

The 2009 Aspire Channel Swim is just over half way through and we already have another 1,200 more people taking part in the challenge than we did last year.  With the huge growth in numbers we also have many more amazing tales of success from our swimmers.

Florence Dickens aged 11 from Ipswich helped Aspire celebrate its tenth anniversary of the Swim by swimming the distance of the channel 10 times over the last 9 months.  She swam her final lengths on her 11th birthday in front of a crowd of well wishers including a host of reporters and Aspire’s Channel Swim Manager Rosie Cotton.

Equally impressive are the efforts of Tom and Mary Wells who took on the challenge as a team – in fact they enjoyed it so much they decided to swim back from France and are nearly back in Dover.  Tom sustained a spinal injury 18 years ago but has only recently found out about the work of Aspire when Mary saw a poster for the Channel Swim in their local pool.  Tom and Mary have since visited Aspire with a BBC film crew to see how the funds they have raised will be used to support people with spinal cord injuries. 

With over 7000 there are many more amazing swimmers out there and Aspire would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you and best of luck with the final few lengths and of course raising those funds!