Alice Tai MBE: Sheffield man who learnt to swim using YouTube set to tackle Channel challenge with Paralympian

A Sheffield man who re-taught himself to swim using YouTube videos will swim the English Channel as part of an inspiring team, led by Paralympic gold medalist, Alice Tai MBE.

Tom Peters, aged 28, watched videos on YouTube to master his swimming stroke, after developing a painful condition five years ago.

He said: "All my passions have been stopped by this. Everything I had done for 15 years had gone, so I went swimming."

Tom committed to swimming every day, but found it difficult due to the constant pain in his foot caused by a nerve injury - so he turned to the internet for help.

"I went to YouTube and searched 'how to front crawl' and found techniques that didn't need much kicking," he said.

Soon, Tom was an expert in an endurance style mostly propelled using the arms and swimming became a new passion. He swam every day, before eventually stumbling across the Channel swim on social media.

He said: "I started following Alice to see how she swam and I saw her posting about the swim."

Alice had shared information about the Channel More challenge, which was being organised by sports nutrition company, Optimum Nutrition. Tom put himself forward and is now coming to the end of a rigourous training regime.

Tom, as well as five other participants, was sent intense training programs designed to prepare him for the Channel swim. He said: "It wasn't even about going faster, just going longer."

The training even saw Tom, Alice and the rest of the team heading to the south coast to try a bit of sea swimming.

"I swam with [Alice] in the sea," he said. "She is really good, which I know sounds daft. I don't stand half a chance against her."

It is Tom's first ever attempt at a challenge of this magnitude and a testament to how far he has come since returning to swimming.

"I'd have never done anything like this," he said. "I lacked motivation and my sessions in the pool were getting shorter and shorter.

"It can be easy to hate on your body because you can't do this and can't do that. I just want to look back and go 'despite this s*** situation, I did this swim'."

The Channel More relay should go ahead this month and will feature a range of participants, including seasoned swimmers and those who couldn't swim before applying.