18/8/2025

We were honoured to have hosted this year’s Commonwealth Lifesaving Championships 2025 in Swansea, where we welcomed 11 teams from across the Commonwealth to take part in the competition, showcasing their lifesaving skills: Team Australia, Team Canada, Team England, Team Kenya, Team Mauritius, Team Northern Ireland, Team Scotland, Team Singapore, Team South Africa, Team Sri Lanka and Team Wales. 

During the opening ceremony, we welcomed participating teams alongside the High Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant of West Glamorgan and heard inspirational words from Greg Whyte OBE about his challenges and experiences. 

When we were selected to host this year’s Lifesaving Championships, we committed to going beyond the competition and creating a legacy in the community around lifesaving sport and all our important work. 

RLSS UK representatives and athletes visited local schools to engage and speak on the importance of water safety, deliver drowning prevention assemblies, and promote lifesaving sport among young children.  

A huge thank you goes out to our gold sponsor, The West Group Ltd, for the Commonwealth Lifesaving Championships. We couldn’t be more grateful for their fantastic support throughout the event, which even saw Managing Director Richard Oddy join the action, get involved from the sidelines, and hand out medals. 

RLSS UK Water Safety Partner Ruth Lee also sponsors the Commonwealth Lifesaving Championships and, in honour of this, donated three Ruth Lee Junior Pool Rescue Manikins to the Championships.  

Sarah Hampson at Ruth Lee said, “We wanted to offer these valuable tools to developing nations with generally fewer resources for lifesaving equipment, to encourage lifesaving to become more accessible across the board. After careful consideration, we presented the three Junior Pool Rescue Manikins to Mauritius, Singapore, and Kenya during the competition. We felt it was an important thing to do.”  

A big thank you to Ruth Lee for the kind donation—they went down a treat, and we got to use them for the first time on the day of the SERC event!  

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Results  

Over the three days, athletes raced their hearts out across various events. Here are just a few worthy mentions and highlights from the Championships. 

The John Long Trophy Award – Development Team  

Gold – England 

Silver – Australia 

Bronze – South Africa 

Prince Michael of Kent Salver Award – National Team 

Gold – England 

Silver – South Africa 

Bronze – Australia 

Full results list available here

A special mention goes to Team England, which won the Nationals and the Development Team. Congratulations on this exciting first and double win! 

Well done to all the teams involved in the competition for your efforts and enthusiasm!  

From the organising committee, referees, officials, and volunteers who are hard at work in the background making sure everything runs smoothly, to the athletes, team managers, coaches, and spectators, a huge thank you from EVERYONE at RLSS UK. Your efforts in delivering this fantastic event with invaluable roles and support throughout do not go unnoticed; none of this would be possible without you. A thank you also to Swansea University and Wales National Pool Swansea for hosting the competition in such excellent, first-class facilities! 

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