Great Britain sign off Championships with a trio of silver medallists
Manchester Aquatics Centre welcomed more than 500 athletes from 67 nations for the Para Swimming World Championships.
The final night of the Manchester 2023 Allianz Para Swimming World Championships saw Suzanna Hext, Ellie Challis and Poppy Maskill each take home a silver medal. Bethany Firth also won a bronze as Great Britain closed out the meet on 38 medals.
Sunday’s action saw Challis pick up her sixth medal from six events, whilst Maskill won her fifth medal of the week and Firth secured her fourth. It ended the games that saw 169 medal events across seven days. Great Britain finished fifth on the medal table with 14 gold, 14 silver and 10 bronze medals.
The newly refurbished Manchester Aquatics Centre welcomed more than 500 athletes from 67 nations, with organisers aiming to put on the most inclusive games ever.
Ahead of the competition up to 150 staff were trained using the Activity Alliance Inclusive Customer Service Training. The eLearning course sets out to empower workforces within leisure and sport organisations. Work was also done to ensure the volunteer recruitment process was inclusive of disabled people.
Andrew Whitaker, Strategic Partnership Advisor for Activity Alliance, worked closely with the organising committee. Ahead of the competition he said:
"We have a brilliant relationship with organisations hosting the Championships. We also have many shared aims, not least to ensure that disabled people have been truly represented in the staging of the event.
"As an organisation we are always on hand to help ensure that there is fairness for disabled people in sport and activity. That is right through from opportunities for volunteers to the athletes themselves."
You can find links to full reports from Manchester 2023 here, with full session replays available on the C4 Sport YouTube. Channel 4 will be broadcasting a one-hour championships highlights programme on Sunday 20 August at 8.30am.
