Aspire is extremely proud that it has been able to go ahead with its 2020 open water swims despite the challenges that Covid-19 has presented us with.  Although it was without doubt the toughest summer we have ever faced in terms of organising swims and preparing swimmers, this year we saw 11 relay teams successfully swim across the English Channel, two brave swimmers swim to France solo, 29 people swim the Solent to the Isle of Wight and two swim the River Arun.  Only our Loch Ness and Loch Lomond swims had to be postponed until 2021.

     

The 11 relay teams who successfully swam to France raised over £230k and the 29 people who swam to the Isle of Wight raised over £50k. 

Every year in November we hold a Swim Celebration Dinner so that we can bring all our open water swimmers together to celebrate their amazing achievements over the past year. Although we still hope to hold this event as soon as we are able to in 2021, last Saturday 28^th November we invited our Channel swimmers to a celebration event held on Zoom during which over 60 swimmers toasted each other and were thanked for their incredible swimming and fundraising efforts.

Brian Carlin, Aspire CEO, says “I’d like to thank all of our swimmers, boat leaders and pilots who have made it possible for Aspire to have such a successful year of open water swimming despite the additional challenges we had to face and precautions we had to implement due to Covid-19.  Thanks to their fantastic swimming and fundraising efforts, this year we reached the incredible milestone of our open water swims having raised over £2 million over the last 12 years to support people with Spinal Cord Injury.  It was great to see so many swimmers come together for our Zoom celebration event and I look forward to celebrating with them in person just as soon as we are able to.”

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