WINNERS of the Bradford Sports Awards for Best Young Club/Team and recently crowned Yorkshire Champions, City of Bradford Artistic Swimming are participating in a scheme from Swim England where they are staging free fun and engaging taster sessions, in a bid to attract more youngsters to take up the sport.

It is part of Swim England’s Inspired To Try campaign ahead of this year’s hugely popular Combo Cup, which is taking place at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge International Pool on Saturday 8 July.

City of Bradford Artistic Swimming coaches, formerly National Champions themselves, are offering eight to 17 year olds the opportunity to try the sport out for the first time.

All participants will receive a medal for taking part and be eligible for two tickets to the Combo Cup, which is a celebration of all artistic swimming clubs from across England coming together to show off their Free Combination team performances in front of large and enthusiastic crowd.

Stephanie Gadd, Swim England programme officer for growth, said: “It’s exciting to see these clubs be a part of the Inspired To Try campaign around the Combo Cup. We hope these fun and engaging free taster sessions will hopefully lead to more children getting involved in this exciting sport. The Combo Cup is a thrilling event to watch and who knows, we might see some of the youngsters attending these taster sessions in action at the competition in the future.”

Maria Ramos, chair of the Swim England Artistic Swimming Leadership Team, added: “We are excited to bring the Combo Cup to Sheffield for the first time in its history – and we are thrilled the local clubs are able to offer young people in the area a chance to try out this popular and fun Olympic sport.”

Charlotte Hughes of City of Bradford Artistic Swimming said “We have had such an amazing few months winning medals and trophies and our swimmers love the excitement of it all after all their hard work. We hope this encourages youngsters who are good swimmers and also enjoy gymnastics or dance to give our sport a try.

City of Bradford are running free taster sessions at Shipley Pool on Saturday 24th June and Saturday 1st July from 4 - 4.45pm. To book a place email artisticswimming@cobsc.co.uk .