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Posted: 18th September 2023

Making a splash in the Serpentine!

Huge congratulations to our very own Ollie Curtin, who successfully completed the 2023 Swim Serpentine event at the weekend.

More than 4,000 people took to the water on Saturday to enjoy the UK’s largest one-day open water swimming festival in London’s Hyde Park. Swimmers filled the famous Serpentine lake from early morning to late afternoon, taking on a variety of distances ranging from a half-mile swim to six miles, in glorious September sunshine.

Participants ranged in age from 12 to 86 and came from every corner of the globe, including Ollie and his father Anthony.  Ollie, who is a member of our Autism Hub peer group, was taking on his first open water swim, and it was a challenging two mile distance  around the lake in Hyde Park.  But Ollie managed it in a time of one hour, eleven minutes - an amazing achievement.

After the event, Ollie said; 

"The actual swim felt much longer than I expected. The furthest distance I had completed previously was 2.5km in a swimming pool which felt much easier than this! In the open water we had to navigate other swimmers, as well as being able to see the next buoy to swim to. When I hauled myself up the pontoon at the finish I felt quite dizzy and like my legs had turned to jelly but once I regained my composure I felt really relieved and proud of myself for having completed such a large challenge! I then waited to clap my dad across the finish line."

Ollie was able to raise a magnificent total of £525  for Sycamore Trust, a sum of whhich he is rightly proud.  He said; "It is definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done, I gives me great confidence knowing that I can overcome such a difficult challenge in my path. Helping raise £525 for a charity that has helped me so much during the past few years makes the feeling ten times sweeter!"

Thank you Ollie and well done to both you and Anthony!