On the 14th January 2014, Panathlon hosted their first deaf swimming pilot, held at Gurnell Leisure Centre. Deaf students from Frank Barnes School in Camden competed across 6 races and 2 team games.
It was a closely fought competition with all teams picking up wins in the 25m freestyle races but the team challenges set the teams apart. The Blue team won both the raft race and the treasure hunt and as a result came away with the gold medal in front of the orange and green teams respectively.
A fantastic pilot, we now hope that more deaf schools and units will get involved with swimming competition days in the future.
“I loved swimming today, it was really good fun. I want to do this every week!”
Cabdi, Student at Frank Barnes School
“The children have really enjoyed themselves today so we hope that there will be plenty more opportunities like this in the future with lots of other schools getting on board. Lots of the children swim casually outside of school but competition between schools would be something completely new to these students and offers so many other social opportunities.”
Rachel, Teacher at Frank Barnes School
Thank you to The Jack Petchey Foundation for making this fantastic competition happen.
