Lake Geneva is big. HUGE. In fact it is 43 miles from end to end and our four heroic teams are going to swim it!

Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40, yet less than 3% of national cancer funding goes towards this devastating disease. Brain tumours also reduce the average life expectancy by 27 years - the highest of any cancer. This has to change.

On Saturday 13 August, our four brilliant teams will compete in the inaugural 'Maillot d'Or' Lake Geneva swim relay challenge, starting at Chateau Chillon at the eastern edge of the lake to finishing 43 miles west in Geneva. All teams have the common goal of defeating brain tumours.

The Lewis Moody Foundation

After ex-England rugby captain Lewis Moody retired from professional rugby, he met an immensely courageous and selfless 15-year-old boy called Joss Rowley-Stark. Joss was living with cancer and, sadly, just over a year after Lewis first met him, he passed away. The impact Joss and his family had on Lewis was huge and he was the inspiration for Lewis and his wife, Annie, setting us The Lewis Moody Foundation in 2014. The Foundation continues to work alongside The Brain Tumour Charity to tackle the disease by funding pioneering research and elements of The Brain Tumour Charity’s support portfolio including vital family days. The Lewis Moody Foundation all female team are Sarah (Captain), Cat (who both used to work at The Brain Tumour Charity) Chess, Faye, Debbie and Vivienne with Lewis being very much involved with training and spurring the team on!

The Brian Cross Memorial Trust

Founded in 2006, The Brian Cross Memorial Trust has to date raised over £1m to help fund research into better treatments and ultimately find a cure in memory of much loved father and husband, Brian Cross who passed away from a brain tumour in September 2006. Through amazing fundraising efforts such as swimming the English Channel and taking part in the prestigious ‘Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Row Challenge’ (a staggering 36 days, 5 hours and 10 minutes of rowing by the way), the trust has fully funded Dr Spencer Watson’s Future Leader research project through The Brain Tumour Charity which looks at targeting treatment damage to stop reoccurrence of a brain tumour. Employing drugs that inhibit glial scar formation in patients receiving treatment could dramatically increase survival by eliminating a common safe haven that cancer cells use to survive therapy. The Brian Cross Memorial Trust team are Alex (Captain), Jonny, Sam, George, Russell and Becs.

Team CRABS

Fully funded by The Brian Cross Memorial Trust through The Brain Tumour Charity, Dr Spencer Watson is actually based in the Johanna Joyce Laboratory in the University of Lausanne on the banks of Lake Geneva (how very convenient for training I hear you say!) Team CRABS (Cancer Researchers Are Bad Swimmers) feel that many amazing people have done some exceptional things to help raise money for their work to find new treatments for brain cancers, including Alex Begg and Todd Hooper from The Brain Cross Memorial Trust who swam the channel and rowed the Atlantic and that they couldn’t do their research without such incredible fundraisers and fundraising supporting their work. Team CRABS want to do their part to help in the fight against cancer and have two aims; to represent the local research community in Switzerland and to….. not drown! (note from the editor, I’d like to substitute the word ‘bad’ for ‘brave’. Cancer Researchers Are Brave Swimmers. For sure. Team CRABS are Spencer (Captain), Roeltje, Benoît, Bruno, Victor, Giulia, Sebastian and Rui (We know that’s eight but they’ll have six swimmers on the day)

Team SAS

Late to the party by their own admission but we could not be more pleased to welcome Team SAS to the Lake Geneva crew! Market leading investment and advisory platform, Atrato Group are investment advisors to Supermarket Income REIT (SUPR), a FTSE 250 real estate trust and the UK’s only specialist grocery property investor. Atrato have a long standing relationship supporting The Brain Tumour Charity. Principle at Atrato, Steve Windsor completed the endurance challenge ‘Everest in the Alps’ (cross country skiing the height of Everest but in the Alps – it is happening again in 2023 if you fancy another crazy challenge!), ran the London Marathon in 2017 and will be doing it again this year all for The Brain Tumour Charity. Atrato have also very generously sponsored Sir John Royden with his solo Lake Geneva swim attempt in 2021 and again in 2022 and we are absolutely delighted that Atrato have chosen The Brain Tumour Charity as one of their official charity partners. Although they know their name is a little ‘gung-ho’, SUPR Atrato Swimmers provided a much better acronym than Atrato SUPR Swimmers……… Team SAS are Jonathan (Captain), Nick, Chris, Cindy, Candy and Simon with Carcie cracking the whip to get them organised and swim ready!