Civic reception for Keri-Anne Payne

Keri-Anne Payne at the Town Hall with her Olympic silver medal and youngsters from the Aquabears swimming club.

1 More Image(s) In Gallery

The red carpet was rolled for Olympics heroine Keri-Anne Payne at a Civic Reception held in her honour by the Mayor and Mayoress of Rochdale.

In front of friends and family, the young athlete from Heywood, who won a Silver medal in the gruelling 10km Open Water swimming event in Beijing, was given a huge welcome home.

More than one hundred guests attended the evening reception held at Rochdale Town Hall, where presentations to Keri-Anne promised sponsorship worth £12,000 from Rochdale Council and Link4Life over the next four years with additional support for other Olympic hopefuls.

Congratulating Keri-Anne, 21, on her success and speaking about the inspiration that she gave to all young people in Rochdale, Heywood Councillor Alan McCarthy pledged a grant of £2,000 a year for the next four years from the Heywood Township funds to provide support for her build up to the London 2012 Games.

He went on to say that her home town of Heywood would be supporting her every step of the way and how he would be encouraging local business sponsors to also get behind her to add to this financial support.

Keri-Anne was also presented with a Talented Athlete Award from Managing Director of Link4Life, Craig McAteer. This award gives a cash grant of £1,000 a year, together with free use of all fitness and pool facilities to help support her training programme. It came on top of a similar presentation to Paralympic athlete Simon Jackson, three times Gold medal winner at Judo, who is now in training for 2012 in the indoor cycling arena.

Craig McAteer said: “As part of our Athlete Development programme, Link4Life will continue to support athletes from their first step into sport right up to world class performers and we will be supporting our 2012 hopefuls over the next four years."

Speaking about Keri-Anne’s achievements he said: “We are delighted to be able to give this support to Keri-Anne. She is a fantastic ambassador for sport and a real role model for all our future athletes.”

Keri-Anne said: “I can’t believe so many people have come here to see me. It’s good to know that not just those who have succeeded but also those who are up and coming Olympic hopefuls will be able to look forward to support here in Rochdale.”

She also thanked her parents and family for all their support over the years and paid tribute to her former Aquabears Coach, Dave Crouch, who was her trainer for four years and who was there to congratulate her at the reception.

Around thirty young members from Aquabears gave Keri-Anne a guard of honour as she made her entrance into the Reception with the Mayor. Keri-Anne said to the Olympic hopefuls: “Whether it is for London or future Olympic Games, I hope that even just a few kids, after watching the swimming and the cycling are inspired to take that sport up. That’s what it’s about and that’s why we do it."