Olympic swimming continues and the Skipton Swimarathon is just weeks away too

Thursday 23 August 2012

The Paralympics is the second largest sports competition in the world, after the Olympics and the London 2012 Paralympic Games will include about 4,200 athletes from 160 nations with over 470 medal events in the programme. The Games run from 29 August to 9 September and promise plenty of excitement.

Swimming is one of the most popular paralympic sports. This year there will be some 600 competitors in the new aquatics centre including Ellie Simmonds, Britain’s youngest ever individual winner of a paralympic gold medal who took gold in the 100 metres freestyle in Beijing in 2008 and followed up with a second gold in the 400 metres freestyle. Indeed in the last three Games, Paralympics GB has never finished lower than second in the medal table, so hopes are high.

Less than a month after the end of the Paralympics, it is the turn of the Skipton Swimarathon taking place at Beau Sejour from 3 to 7 October. An event catering for all ages and abilities, the Skipton Swimarathon has a long tradition of giving everybody the opportunity to enjoy swimming. Now in its 36th year, the event is about having fun and raising funds for good causes.

This year, money is being collected for the Guernsey Cardiac Action Group to help them purchase and provide training for the use of public access defibrillators which will be placed in strategic locations around the community and are designed specifically to treat Sudden Cardiac Arrest, a condition when the heart stops beating unexpectedly.

These defibrillators are for use by people with little or no medical background and therefore are ideal for members of the public to use. When applied to the patient, voice commands and screen messages guide the user step by step through the process. A defibrillator delivers an electric current through the chest which aims to shock the heart back into normal rhythm allowing it to pump blood again.
Jeff Kitts, chairman of the Skipton Swimarathon Committee said: “Now the people of Guernsey have the opportunity to share in this wonderful summer of sport. The Swimarathon is just weeks away. You can enter individually or as a team and then start fundraising for an excellent local cause”.