Graduate enterprise launches second year of Marathon swims

Swimming photo

Diccon Loy, a Sport Business and Innovation MSc student's venture, Marathon Swims, has launched its second year of swimming challenges today.

Marathon Swims 2018, the ultimate swimming challenge, launches today. Swimming now has its own marathon. Marathon Swims returns to the iconic London Aquatics Centre, home of swimming during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, on 10th and 11th November 2018.

Marathon Swims sold out in its first year, and organisers expect it to do so again in record time. This year the event has added an extra day to give participants a choice of race days and increase capacity due to the expected high demand.

The swimming marathon distance first came to prominence as a 10k open water event at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. The marathon swim has been a key spectacle in the Olympic schedule ever since with spectacular races in the Serpentine (London 2012) and at Copacabana Beach (Rio 2016). Marathon Swims has redefined the challenge as an indoor, pool-based Marathon 10k, Half Marathon 5k and a 1k Challenge distance event. 

Marathon Swims has an innovative format that delivers instant, reliable results, and enhances the event experience for spectators and participants.  Founding event partners Better and Cancer Research UK have renewed their partnerships, along with new partners swimming holiday provider, Swim Quest

Diccon Loy, Sport Business and Innovation student at Loughborough University London and Marathon Swims founder stated

We have been delighted at the response and interest in Marathon Swims. To engage such great partners and sell out in our first year proved to us that swimming as a sport has great potential for growth and development. We set out to create an experience and challenge like no other in the pool. We wanted to deliver the same sense of occasion and challenge as the London Marathon delivers for runners. Swimming now has its own marathon and we’re excited about the prospects of developing a national series of events.

Andrew Clark, Head of Swimming for London Aquatics Centre’s operator Better stated

We are a proud founding partner of the Marathon Swims event and delighted to support the event for its second year. At Better, we have delivered an innovative approach to operations at London Aquatics Centre and at over 250 other public leisure centres. Marathon Swims is an extension of this innovation, having the opportunity to take part in this fantastic event will provide motivation for our customers to swim more, train and improve in readiness for a significant challenge, and support our aim to improve the health and well being of the local communities we work in.

Entries to Marathon Swims: London are now open and expected to sell out before event day. Other Marathon Swims events are set to launch later in the year.

For more information contact info@marathonswims.com

@MarathonSwims

Notes to Editors:

About Marathon Swims:

Marathon Swims is a global series of swimming challenge events in the world’s most iconic swimming arenas.  The first event in the series was the London event, Saturday 11 November 2017. The event returns as a two-day event 10 and 11 November 2018.

About the London Aquatic Centre:

London Aquatics Centre is situated in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London.  Part of the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic venues, was that they opened after the Games to be vibrant, well-used spaces for the local community. The London Aquatics Centre opened to the public on 1st March 2014 and has since welcomed over 2million visitors. The world-class facilities, including two 50 meter pools, 25 metre diving pool and diving facilities, are open for the public to use, as is our state-of-the-art gym and fitness facility. Every week, more than 3,500 children and adults learn to swim with us and more than 600 people learn to dive.

About GLL/Better:

GLL/Better was founded in 1993 as a charitable social enterprise with seven leisure centres in Greenwich.  In 1996 the social enterprise started expanding outside of the London Borough of Greenwich and now runs all kinds of community services and spaces across the UK.  Now renamed Better, over 250 public sport and leisure centres and 57 libraries are managed in partnership with more than 30 local councils, public agencies and sporting organisations.  Membership to the organisations’ centres has increased to over 650,000 with 40 million visitors a year.

About Participation Sport Ltd.:

Participation Sport Ltd. is the company behind Marathon Swims.  The Participation Sport team have over 15 years’ experience in delivering world class mass participation sports events.

Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.

It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme, named the best university in the world for sports-related subjects in the 2020 QS World University Rankings and top in the country for its student experience in the 2018 THE Student Experience Survey.

Loughborough is in the top 10 of every national league table, being ranked 4th in the Guardian University League Table 2020, 5th in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020 and 8th in The UK Complete University Guide 2020.

Loughborough is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’ and is in the top 10 in England for research intensity. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes.

Specialising exclusively in postgraduate-level study, Loughborough University London is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers cutting-edge master’s and PhD degrees, as well as business collaboration, research and enterprise opportunities.

The seven specialist institutes at Loughborough University London include: Design Innovation, Digital Technologies, Diplomacy and International Governance, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, International Management, Media and Creative Industries, and Sport Business. Close industry partnerships with a wealth of leading businesses and creative organisations means teaching and learning is informed by real-life challenges and driven by true industry pressures.