Para World Swimming Championships hosted on campus, with UoM student going for Gold!

UoM Student Goes for Gold!

UoM Immunology Graduate and Public Health Masters Student, Grace Harvey, will be representing Team GB at the championships across 3 events. Grace is a UoM Sport Scholar and has already won World Gold in 100m Breaststroke (SB5) in 2022 and Paralympic (Tokyo 2020) & Commonwealth (Birmingham 2022) Silver medals.

When asked about the preparation for the games Grace said “I’m really looking forward to worlds starting, I woke up this morning thinking ‘oh my goodness we actually get to race!’ – this is the meet we’ve trained for all year and I think it’s so exciting that it’s in my home training pool as well so I’m really familiar with the facilities. Especially post the refurbishment as well it’s a really welcoming environment to have international competition in.”

On University support Grace have received during her time at University Grace commented: “I definitely wouldn’t be able to study my masters if I didn’t have the support from the sport scholarship team, they were incredibly instrumental in my switching my full-time study to part-time study because the demands of a masters and training for a world championships are intense. I did start off the year thinking I could manage both but I didn’t want to have a subpar performance in either so they were really key in giving me the support I needed to say ‘you know what I am struggling here’ and so I could actually succeed in both.”

Its been a long build up to the championships but they are finally here and Grace couldn’t hide her excitement, “It’s so exciting! When you see all the tickets and it’s saying ‘final few tickets remaining’ and then they’re coming down because all the sessions are selling out – it is just so exciting for para-sport, for the competitors racing and it’s nice knowing people want to come and support us at our local world championships in Manchester”

Grace will be swimming in 3 different events over the course of the week:

• Womens 100m Backstroke S6 (31st July)
• Womens 200m Individual Medley – SM6 (2nd August)
• Womens 100m Breaststroke – SB5 (4th August)

Exact timings are still to be confirmed but the schedule can be downloaded here. Heats start at 9am each day with finals start from 5.30pm.

Everyone from UoM wishes Grace the very best of luck for the Championships.

UoM access to the Manchester Aquatics Centre

As a University facility, UoM students and staff can access the centre at discounted rates using their University ID. There are a range of offers available from pay as you go, to centre only memberships for students as well as more inclusive partnership centres for both students and staff:

• Students and staff can pay as you go for as little as £2.50 or £3.20 as opposed to £6 for public non-members
• Student Memberships (includes full access to MAC and Sugden Centre):
  • £179 for 9 month membership
  • £215 for 12 month membership
  • £25 per month Direct Debit (includes access to all GLL Partnership facilities)

• Staff Memberships (Includes full access to MAC and Sugden Centre):
  • £225 for 12 month membership (includes access to all GLL Partnership facilities)
  • £18.75 per month Direct Debit, when deducted from payroll.
  • £38.50 per month Direct Debit (includes access to all GLL Partnership facilities)