Olympians From Manchester

With the Olympics over, although the games were London-based

, we couldn't help but notice the Northern accents amongst the athletes. However, several are actually from around Manchester too. Here's a list of Team GB members who hail from the area.

Keri-Anne Payne is a South African-born British swimmer. Although she was born in Johannesburg, she moved to Manchester when she was 13 and competes for Great Britain. Keri-Anne specialises in open water marathon swimming, as well as long distance freestyle swimming in the pool. The Olympic silver medallist is a two-time World 10km Open Water champion. She started swimming when she was four years old, and when she was eight years old she was spotted by British Swimming's National Performance Director.

English track cyclist Jason Kenny MBE was born in 1988 and specialises in sprinting. His first Olympics were the 2008 Beijing Games, where he won a gold medal for the team sprint alongside Chris Hoy and Jamie Staff. In the London Olympics Games this year, he won two gold medals, one in the team sprint and one in the individual sprint. Jason is from Bolton, which is near Manchester. Shanaze Reade, a BMX rider and track cyclist is from Cheshire; she began competing in 2002 and is a three-time winner of the UCI BMX World Championships. She competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and was named the sole woman member of the BMX team by British Cycling.

Long distance runner Paula Radcliffe is from Cheshire, which is situated in the UK near Manchester. She has won the London Marathon three times, the New York Marathon twice and won the Chicago Marathon in 2002. Although she's never won an Olympic medal, she was represented Great Britain at the Olympics four times, from 1996 to 2008. She has won various other awards however, including the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Laureus World Comeback of the Year and the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Fran Halsall is a British freestyle and butterfly swimmer. She was born in Southport, which is in the north of England near Manchester. In 2010 she competed in the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India where she won a gold medal in the 50 metre butterfly and set a national record of 26.19 seconds. She also competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics as part of Team GB in the 100m butterfly, 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 4x100m freestyle, 2x200m freestyle and 4x100m individual medley.

by: Kate Taylor

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