Charity champions take on ‘Gladiators’ at The Gauntlet Games in Heaton Park

The Gauntlet Games Heaton Park
Hundreds of people took on the The Gauntlet Games at Heaton Park to raise money for St Ann's Hospice (Pic by Chris Bull)

People from across Greater Manchester took on real Gladiators at The Gauntlet Games in the name of charity at a game-show obstacle course.

The event, which is the world’s only obstacle course with real Gladiators, took place at Heaton Park, where hundreds of participants braved inflatable obstacles as they battled the 5km and 10km courses.

Many runners took part to raise money for the official charity partner, St Ann’s Hospice, an organisation that has been providing care to thousands of patients from Greater Manchester for more than four decades.

Fran Wilson, Lead Events Fundraiser at St Ann’s, said:  “We’re always amazed by the different ways people come up with to support the hospice, and The Gauntlet Games was such an amazing spectacle.  We can’t thank the runners who chose to help our patients in this way enough – especially for braving those Gladiators!”

The Gauntlet Games was created in 2015 and is the brainchild of Sarah King, who wanted to give people the chance of having real fun while running.

She said: “I find running quite boring, so I wanted to find a way to make it fun. I think everyone would love to take part in game-show obstacle courses and Gladiators was one of my favourites.

“We love seeing people come face-to-face with the friendly Gladiators on our course, in giggles as they take on our huge inflatable, water and foam obstacles.

“This is all about doing something active and healthy, but having great fun doing so. To add to this, about 50% of our runners raise money for hundreds of different charities so they’re doing good whilst getting fit.”

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