Hole-in-the-heart swimmer Shannon Hartley-Cain

 A super-fit Shropshire teenager has become one of the county’s top young swimmers – despite suffering from a hole in her heart.

Shannon Hartley-Cain, 13, now hopes to swim the distance of the English Channel to help provide a potentially life-saving machine for Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital.

Shannon, of Juniper Drive, Trench, Telford, has won a clutch of medals and trophies competing for Newport and District Swimming Club.

Her virtual Channel swim will see her doing 1,408 lengths of Newport swimming pool, just under 22 miles, in aid of the British Heart Foundation’s Telford in Focus appeal, which aims to raise £71,000 to buy a portable echo machine which uses ultrasound to spot heart defects.

Shannon, a pupil at Sutherland School, Trench, was inspired by the Virtual Cycle Tour, being run at Telford & Wrekin Council leisure centres, which sees cyclists riding the equivalent of Land’s End to John O’ Groats for Telford in Focus.

“I saw a leaflet for the cycle tour and thought I could do the same sort of thing with my swimming,” said the backstroke specialist, whose ambition is to swim for her country in the Olympics.

“I started this week and have already completed half the distance and raised nearly £100.”

Tammy Hartley-Cain, her mother, said: “Shannon swims five times a week, for one or two hours a time, and is really fit.”

• To sponsor Shannon call (01952) 404283 or fill in a sponsor form at Telford & Wrekin Council’s leisure centres.