BLACKPOOL swimmer and medal winner Lesley Iredale will soon be heading the ladies team for the XIth World Transplant Games in Australia.

Lesley will be hoping to add to her impressive World Transplant Games medal tally of five golds, four silvers and three bronze.

The games, which run from September 29 to October 5 in Sydney, will be the biggest to date, with 42 countries and more than 1,000 athletes taking part.

An 81-strong Great Britain team (55 men and 26 women), all of whom have had a life-supporting organ transplant, will be competing in a wide range of events.

Lesley will take part in the freestyle 50m, 200m and 400m, 50m butterfly and a 200m individual medley.

Lesley, who had a kidney transplant in 1990, has been in training with the Blackpool Swimming Club three times a week as well as working out in the gym twice a week.

"It's a great honour being in the games. There's a fantastic team spirit whether I'm training or competing," she said.

"My best friend, Samantha Baxter from Poulton, is a swimming coach and she's written me a gruelling training schedule.

"I'm stronger now than I was before I had any trouble with my kidney and the fitter I've got the fitter I've wanted to be."

Raising money to get to Australia has been Lesley's only problem.

"A week ago I didn't think I'd be able to go because I hadn't raised enough money," she revealed.

"But Fleetwood Swimming Club, where I teach once a week, have organised events all week with a barbecue planned on Saturday (August 23).

"Hopefully I can now go and win medals and raise awareness to the need for donors."

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