Sophie Rowney and Madeleine Bayliss-Cox both awarded Gemma Yates Trophy

Walsall Artistic Swimming Club’s Madeleine Baylis-Cox and City of Salford Synchronised Swimming Club’s Sophie Rowney were named joint winners of this year’s Gemma Yates Trophy.

The trophy is awarded in memory of Gemma, and is presented to a Swim England athlete for their endeavour within the sport.

Gemma swam for Walsall and was selected to represent England at the Junior European Championships before sadly passing away at the age of 17.

The trophy was then created in her memory and has been awarded since 1999 with Gemma’s parents, Nick and Lynda Yates, choosing the winner.

Clubs are invited to make their recommendations for the award and this year saw two people receive the honour for the first time.

The duo have both overcome some difficult challenges to continue their love of the sport and after plenty of deliberation Nick and Lynda simply couldn’t choose between them.

Lynda said: “They’re both so wonderful so we just couldn’t decide. We read the nominations over and over but in the end we had to say look we’re struggling to choose.

‘Bucking traditions’

“So we spoke to Maria (Ramos – Chair of Swim England’s Artistic Swimming Leadership Group) and she suggested that on this occasion we could buck tradition and have two winners which meant a lot to us.

“It would’ve been awful for either one of them not to receive it because they both like all of the nominees really deserved it.”

The award which was given out at the GoCardless Swim England Artistic Swimming National Championships in April and added to a brilliant weekend for Rowney, who ended up finishing as runner-up in the standings for the Holland Trophy at the competition.

Reflecting on what the award means to them Nick added: “It’s hard to come back sometimes but it’s great that Gemma is still part of artistic swimming and that’s all that we want really.

“It’s been 26 years now that we’ve been coming and while we can we always will because the sport meant so much to her and the trophy really is her so it’s really special for us.”

Image: Will Johnstone Photography