Matthew McCreadie- Swimmer Challenge

Matthew was born prematurely with Down Syndrome and has overcome various medical hurdles but has always been very motivated and determined to try numerous sports. He demonstrated a real passion for competitive swimming and decided that this would be his focus despite being a late starter to competitions. Matthew is now 19 years old and has worked extremely hard to improve his technique over the last few years. Whilst he is unable to swim Breaststroke in competitions due to previous medical operations, he has been a keen member of both Inverness Amateur Swimming Club and Highland Disability Swim Team.

In October of 2021 he was invited to training sessions across the UK with the Down Syndrome GB Team and he was officially invited to join the team last year. Matthew is the only male Scottish swimmer presently in the Down Syndrome GB team. After intensive efforts he has been selected to compete in the European Championships in Padova Italy; he will fly out on the 1st of September 2023 for ten days where he will compete for the GB Team for the first time. This should be followed with the British Swimming Championships in November and potentially even the World Championships in Turkey during 2024.

In December of last year Matthew was given an award from the Inverness Rotary Club; he also completed a charity challenge where he swam the equivalent length of Loch Ness to raise over £3k for The Archie Foundation

Unfortunately, we have been unable to secure any sports funding from any of the sporting bodies to help Matthew compete. Although he is representing Scotland and Great Britain in competitions there is no help available whilst we will have spent a staggering £9k in training, equipment, travel and other related costs (including his Italy competition) so far in 2023.

Although somewhat hesitant, the reason for setting up this fund is on the back of requests from friends who have said that they really want to support Matthew and have indicated it is preferable to them than attending a fundraiser. In preparation for Padova and to support this fundraising, Matthew will aim to swim a total of 1,473 lengths during the month of August to represent the number of miles from Inverness to Padova.