GB Ice Swimming Championships 2024: Popular and Successful

Cold water swimming returned to the beautiful and historic Sandford Lido on 6 and 7 January 2024 with the International Ice Swimming Associations GB Ice Swimming Championships

The championships offer events ranging in distance from 50m to 1000m. Tickets sold out within 72 hours of being made available and participants said the standard of swimming has gone up (again) and made for some great racing. For example, Philip Duma dipped under 3 minutes for the 250m freestyle while Olympian Dan Wallace did an impressive 1:00.30 in the 100m freestyle. The only disappointment was the 6.5-degree water temperature, which was too warm for true ice swimming and meant no records could be challenged.

Keri Hutchinson was a volunteer at the event, as well as supporting her daughter. She said, “I thought IISA GB did a great job and the venue is always excellent. Everybody seemed very smiley this year. There was a great vibe and some very fast swimmers, which made it tricky for the timekeepers. However, I think quite a few people who might normally compete missed out as it sold out so fast.”

Nick Hungerford, who was part of the organising committee as well as a participant says: “The GB Championships were a nice ‘warm-up’ for the inaugural IISA European Championships in Romania, which take place from 2 to 4 Feb. Team GB is sending a very strong team of 41 swimmers and the event will be live-streamed.”

The full results are available here: https://internationaliceswimming.com/wp-content/themes/rttheme18-child/events/pdf_event_results.php?event=156

For more on the International Ice Swimming Association see here: https://internationaliceswimming.com/

Live stream for IISA events: https://www.youtube.com/@internationaliceswimmingas1751/featured?

All images thanks to Emma at Dunleavy-Harris Photography