Water polo referee Chris Freebury has been selected by the European governing body for aquatics to represent hosts Great Britain at the men’s LEN European Nations Trophy in Manchester.

Freebury from Allestree, Derbyshire has been named in the list released by the Ligue European de Natation (LEN) and is one of 12 referees to officiate at the championships which take place at the Manchester Aquatics Centre from 8-15 July.

Fifty-year-old Freebury has extensive experience within water polo and currently coaches at Bingham and Calverton Water Polo Club. A qualified referee for more than 25 years, Freebury has officiated at a variety of international events including the European Championships, Commonwealth Tournament and Maccabiah Games.

Freebury is excited about working at a major international event on home soil.

“I’m really looking forward to officiating at the LEN European Nations Trophy,” he said. “It’s great to work at an event with a British team involved, and although I won’t be refereeing them, I’ll be hoping they do well.

“I was in New Zealand with the team at the Southern Cross Tournament last month and I have every confidence they’ll do their best in Manchester. They’ve been putting a lot of training in and have really developed over the past six months.

“Since rule changes in water polo in 2005, the game has become much more exciting to watch. I hope having such a large tournament on home soil will raise the profile of water polo and show people what a thrilling team sport it is.”

The LEN European Nations Trophy takes place at the Manchester Aquatics Centre from 8-15 July 2007. Day tickets for the event start from £5 for adults and £3 for concessions. For more information or to buy tickets log onto www.manchester2007.com

-ENDS-

Teams competing in the LEN European Nations Trophy are as follows:
Group A: Belarus, Turkey, Malta, Belgium, Montenegro, Macedonia
Group B: France, Great Britain, Poland, Ukraine, Israel, Ireland

The LEN European Nations Trophy takes place at the Manchester Aquatics Centre from 8-15 July 2007 and is jointly funded by British Swimming, UK Sport and Manchester City Council.

For more information contact British Swimming media officer Amanda Smith on 01509 632238, 07876 652 318 or email amanda.smith@swimming.org

British Swimming is the National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain.  It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Countries national governing bodies of England (Amateur Swimming Association), Scotland (Scottish Amateur Swimming Association) and Wales. (Welsh Amateur Swimming Association)  British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
www.britishswimming.org

UK Sport works in partnership with national governing bodies and distributes Lottery funding each year through the World Class Events Programme to support their bidding and staging costs, as well as providing specialist technical support. Since 1997, UK Sport has supported more than 80 events of World, European and Commonwealth status
www.uksport.gov.uk