Posted: 17/12/24
Sports students spur on BBC swimmers
Sports students spur on BBC swimmers
Teams from BBC radio stations across the UK have been attempting to swim a thousand miles for BBC’s Children in Need throughout this week – and we were proud to support their efforts earlier today.
BBC Radio Nottingham have taken on 24 of those miles and made it their mission to swim the equivalent distance between Beeston and Sutton-in-Ashfield, undertaking their 77 lengths-a-day at pools across Nottingham and Mansfield.
Today, they completed their mission at Water Meadows swimming complex in Mansfield and were supported by sports students Ashleigh May and Aukse Zavurskyte, as well as sport programme area leader Scott Corah, at the super early time of 7am!
That’s because the team at BBC Radio Nottingham were keen to have a cheerleading presence to motivate their swimmers – made up of Hansa Dabee and Lewis Scrimshaw from the station, and Emily Anderson and Angela Rafferty from BBC East Midlands Today – during their final lengths. Both Ashleigh and Aukse have cheerleading experience outside of their studies on the Advanced Foundation Diploma in Sports Women’s Football Programme. Aukse is a member of The Lady Grenades in Coventry and Ashleigh has previously been a cheerleader but is currently taking a break from the sport.
In this morning’s live broadcast from Water Meadows, the girls spoke to Breakfast Show presenter Verity Cowley about their studies at the college while Scott gave some facts about how athletes such as swimmers should prepare both physically and mentally for this type of sporting challenge.
You can listen to the highlights from the Breakfast Show here.
Ashleigh and Aukse then joined four students from Nottingham Trent University who also attended in their cheerleading capacity. Emily Sawyer, Ally Hopcraft, Freya Hallam and Delphi Shepperd, who are all members of Trent Tigers cheer team, joined in the fun and the six of them creatively choreographed a mood-boosting chant for the swimmers. You can watch the cheerleading support here.
After the BBC team had completed their swim, they came for a well-earned breakfast at the Old Brewery campus café and to cut their Pudsey Bear cake to celebrate completing their week’s swimathon.
Special thanks go to Scott Corah for encouraging Ashleigh and Aukse to come along and join in the fun, to the girls’ tutors for sparing them the time out of the classroom today, and to our catering colleagues Matt Dean, David Smedley and Ronnie Kocicova for providing food and a friendly service in the café for our guests.
