A team from Euxton Parish Church successfully competed alongside 1600 athletes who all took part in the Ironman 70.3 Bolton event; raising money for their church and achieving third place in their category. 

The parish church team participated as a relay team, and achieved an amazing third place in the Relay Teams Women category.

With a fundraising target of £2,500 in the form of sponsorship, the team embarked on the difficult challenge to raise much needed funds for their church.

The Ironman competition is a familiar event to this church community as their vicar, Rev Jo Smith, has been an Ironman chaplain since 2016, supporting numerous events across the country.

The Euxton Parish Church relay team was Rev. Amy Bland (curate at Euxton), Becky Edge and Beth Palmer (both also school governors of Euxton CE Primary School).

The trio are pictured above... left to right, Becky, Amy and Beth. 

Starting at 6.15am, Amy swam a 1.2 mile lap of Pennington Flash before handing over the timing chip to Becky, who proceeded to cycle the 56 mile route around the villages local to the lake then two loops around Bolton and Horwich.

Beth completed the event, running a 13.1 mile route around Bolton Town Centre, with the team effort culminating in a 100 metre run together down the red carpet to the finish at Bolton Town Hall.

There they were presented with their medals by Rev Jo; the atmosphere was electric as crowds gathered in their thousands to support all the athletes.

The team all agreed the local support spurred them on, with a couple of personal records even being achieved!

Completing the full event in 5 hours 44 minutes, the third-placed Euxton church team proudly received their trophies at Bolton Town Hall that evening.

It was the first time any of the team had participated in such a big endurance event, making it all the more exciting for them; with the result proving all the months of hard training was worthwhile. The team really lived up to Ironman’s slogan 'Anything is Possible!

(Especially with God’s help.)

The amazingly supportive local church community, family and friends have all rallied round the team personally and in their fundraising endeavours over the past few months.

Donations received are approaching their £2,500 target.

Rev. Jo said: “This has been an incredible effort from within our church family to raise funds for Euxton Parish Church, the money raised will enable us to do more to share the love of Jesus with our community and beyond.

• To make a donation visit Euxton Parish Church Ironman
• For more details of the Ironman event, visit this page. 

Ronnie Semley, July 2024