Saturday, the 25th of May saw the second Rising Stars Gala of 2024 at the prestigious Manchester Aquatic Centre with Harpurhey Swimming Club managing to take home both the Team and Relay trophies.
The event is sponsored by AWB & Son, who are notable for Compliance Solutions relating to Fire Safety, Water Hygiene, Training and Technical Advice, and organised and officiated by volunteers from the City of Manchester Aquatics Swim Team, with swimmers from the senior squads providing the timekeeping.
108 swimmers attended the event and competed in 50m of Freestyle, Breaststroke, Butterfly, and Backstroke, together with a 100m Individual Medley, with Team Freestyle relays to finish the evening.
The Gala is an invitation event for the local network of Manchester community swimming clubs. The clubs involved are Broadway, Harpurhey, Wythenshawe, COMAST Raven Moss, COMAST Hough End, COMAST Academy, the Matt Walker Academy for disability swimmers and Chadderton.
Medals are awarded to the top three in each event and age groups of 8 to 14/15 years, with overall and relay team trophies.
Harpurhey won the overall Team Trophy, presented to them by Jamie Ingram (England), keenly contested by Wythenshawe SC and Raven Moss having their best ever finish in 3rd place.
Harpurhey finished 1st in the “A” Team Relay to do the double, only just finishing 1.12 seconds in front of Raven Moss, with Wythenshawe bringing up 3rd place just under 6 seconds further back.
In the “B” Relay, Raven Moss proved to be the winners, outpacing Wythenshawe for 2nd and Hough End 3rd.
Full results can be found on this LINK.
The next gala is scheduled for 14th September.