Citi World Series 2024: Ellie Challis excited to kick off season at home

The wait is finally over. Aberdeen welcomes the Citi Para Swimming World Series Great Britain 2024 from Thursday to Sunday (1-4 February) marking the opening of the eighth edition of the Series – and the second to take place in a Paralympic year.

The Aberdeen Sports Village will host 148 Para swimmers from 22 nations during four days of action in the first of the nine Citi World Series in 2024. You can find the complete schedule and live results here.

The Citi Para Swimming World Series Great Britain 2024 is being streamed live on British Swimming YouTube channel

The meet is also an important opportunity for athletes to self-assess and establish the best course for the next seven months in order to arrive at the Paris 2024 Paralympics at their best physical and technical conditions.

The home squad is the largest delegation attending the meet with 57 swimmers. Among them is 19-year-old Paralympic medallist and world champion Ellie Challis, who faces the home World Series as a crucial step in her recovery from a recent operation and in her preparations for the important season ahead.

“Looking towards Lignano Sabbiadoro [March] and France [June] legs and the Paralympic Games [August], it’s a nice step to have this event at this time of the year and get that first international racing opportunity of the season”, Challis said.

“I’d love to have some decent performances in Aberdeen - it’s only the starting point of the season to see where I’m at, and then going towards Italy I’d like to be challenging my PB’s [personal best] to boost my confidence going into our trials at the British Swimming Championships in April. At Paris, I hope to win a medal and challenge for more”, she added.

Great Britain is one of the seven World Series to take place before Paris 2024 in a season which also includes the European Open Championships in Madeira, Portugal. The detailed calendar of this year's Citi Para Swimming World Series can be found here.

“Last year was really nice to do my first World Series abroad, going to Berlin and Limoges. Those racing opportunities head-to-head with people in my class are great,” Challis said.

Familiar faces

For the British swimmer it will be a different experience compared to the last time she was in Scotland’s Silver City two years ago. Back then, Covid-19 restrictions were still on and her family and friends could not attend the event to support her.

“I’m very excited that I get to see all my friends that I don’t get to see often because many of them are Para swimming friends. It’s a surprise to have so many people over for our event which is really nice and should produce some good racing”.

Ellie (S3) will be competing in five races during the four-day meet, including the three events in which she was crowned world champion last year in Manchester: the 50m breaststroke, the 200m freestyle and the 50m backstroke, in which she got her first and so far only Paralympic medal at Tokyo 2020. She will also be seen in the pool in the 50m and 100m freestyle.

Since the Games in Tokyo, Challis also added another world title to her CV at Madeira 2022 making her a completely different swimmer than that 17-year-old who reached the podium on her Paralympic debut.

“Although I’m still really young, those five years racing internationally [she started at the 2019 Worlds] give me good experience. Tokyo was such an amazing event, and though Paris would be my second Games, it also is kind of my first as it will be such a different experience to have the crowd there, not have all the Covid protocols. It will be like a first time all over again, I have that ‘first time’ excitement and one of the things I’m looking forward to doing the most is a kitting out day with ParalympicsGB as we couldn’t last time around”, said Ellie.

Alongside Challis, there will be plenty of British stars from last year’s home World Championships competing in Aberdeen, such as Faye Rogers, Alice Tai, Rebecca Redfern and Suzanna Hext in women’s events; and Matthew Redfern, Rhys Darbey and Sam Downie in the men’s races.

Visiting world champions in action

The Citi Para Swimming World Series Great Britain 2024 is also an opportunity for some international swimmers to make their first trip to the country since they collected gold medals at Manchester 2023. 

Canada brings 19 athletes to Aberdeen, including Tess Routliffe (S7) who will swim the same two events in which she took the world title last year, the women’s 200m medley and 100m breaststroke (she will also compete in the 50m butterfly).

Spain is the third largest delegation attending the meet with 15 athletes led by Inigo Llopis Sanz who grabbed one of the six Spanish gold medals in Manchester with his triumph in the men’s 100m backstroke S8. He will dive 

Sanz will enter four events in the Aberdeen Sports Village’s pool, in the 100m backstroke, 100m butterfly, and 100m freestyle plus the 400m freestyle.

You can follow all the action from the first World Series of the season on World Para Swimming channels on Facebook, Instagram and X (Twitter).