Black Country Triathletes in 24-hour swim to honour coach with MND

Alan Bagnall delivered sessions with passion and a wonderful humour, the club said

Dozens of triathletes are aiming to do a 24-hour swim challenge to raise money in honour of their coach who died with motor neurone disease (MND).

Alan Bagnall, 75, had been part of Black Country Triathletes (BCT) in the West Midlands for about 19 years.

They hope to raise £24,000, with a team of two swimming 24 miles, 12 miles per person, from Wednesday lunchtime.

Mr Bagnall had enabled people "to swim distances they thought they would never achieve", the club said.

The coach, from Essington in Staffordshire, passed away in September.

One of the challenge organisers, Cheryl Blewitt, said: "I don't think he realised how inspirational he was, what an effect he had on a lot of people."

She said that before she met him she would not go into water but he had given her the confidence to do so.

He gave so much to so many, the club said, and always delivered interesting and challenging swim sessions with passion and a wonderful humour.

Mrs Blewitt said it was "quite sad to see him deteriorate" and even when he could not attend sessions, he still wrote their training plans.

About 50 people are expected to participate in the event at Wombourne Leisure Centre for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, she said, with Mr Bagnall's children and grandchildren also taking part.

Black Country Triathletes has about 120 members

She stated "none of us have done anything like it before" and said only a handful "are really good swimmers".

The swimmers will race one hour on, one hour off.

"How you manage nutrition and sleep patterns, that's where it's going to be so tough." Mrs Blewitt said.

"Motor neurone disease is such a challenging condition. That is why we wanted to make it hard for ourselves."

Asked about Christmas and people being physically ready, she said: "[We'll] probably want to be slightly careful not to over indulge."