Teenagers swim English Channel distance for charity

Four teenagers swam the distance of the English Channel for charity.

George Nagle, 17, George Coverly, 17, Jack Minney, 17 and Henry Dean, 18, set themselves the challenge as part of a project in their business class at The FitzWimarc School in Rayleigh, Essex.

They completed 1,352 lengths of the swimming pool at Southend Leisure and Tennis Centre on Thursday, in just over seven hours.

The group have raised nearly £2,000 for Prostate Cancer UK.

The teenagers started their challenge at 7:30 GMT, swimming more than 33,000 kilometres.

"We just thought it was a good charity," Coverly told BBC Essex.

"We're all men, so it's something we can all relate to. One in eight men get prostate cancer, so we thought it was a good cause and we'd do something to help out."

Dean, who is ranked third for his age in 50m Butterfly, passed on his tips from competing at the top level of British swimming.

"I've been teaching them front crawl," he said.

The teenagers each completed more than 300 lengths each, raising awareness with a social media campaign.

"I'm really sore, all my muscles are really sore," Coverly said.

"I haven't swum in about two, three years."

Nagle said: "We've had loads of messages from our classmates, family members and the local people.

"People have just been supporting the cause and it's a good cause."

Jack described the swim as a "really good achievement".

He said: "I used to swim as well but didn't enjoy it much, so I stoppe.

"So I'm quite used to swimming but my body can't handle it much."

The teenagers chose to set up the charity event as part of a business course project.

Manjola Carter, their teacher at FitzWimarc, said this type of challenge had "never been done" in her eight years of teaching.

"They've done absolute amazingly and it makes me super proud of them all," she said.

"They wanted to raise money for their chosen charity, so they came up with this amazing idea.

"I was a bit shocked, thinking 'will they be able to'.

"It's a long period of time to be swimming but they did amazing."