Students from the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham volunteered to be the ‘live audience’ when the school played host for the training of a team of Sporting Champions.
Sporting Champions is a Sport England initiative bringing world-class sports performers face-to-face with young people and young adults to inspire and motivate them. Delivering in partnership with Creating Excellence, the Trust, will be providing the training for these athletes, as they attempt to encourage more young people to get into sport at all levels.
Sporting Champions is part of the wider Sportivate programme. Sportivate is a new nationwide campaign that forms part of the Places, People, Play Olympic legacy programme by the Government and Sport England. Sportivate sits within the Play strand and will directly contribute to the mass participation legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Sportivate will target 14-25 year olds. This target group will receive 6 weeks of high quality coaching in the sport of their choice and then be guided into regular participation within their local community.
One student who took part in the day commented
“I really enjoyed the day! I found it quite inspiring talking with the athletes and about their personal experiences within the competitive sporting world which they are in. It was also incredibly fun and I learnt some good techniques about coaching and motivating children/adolescents in sport. These skills are useful to me because I coach gymnastics. I admired most of all the athletes attitudes towards life and how encouraging they were with us when we were taking part in the activities! I hope to have another opportunity to be involved with something like this again because it was truly fantastic!”
Sporting Champion Mark ( Fossy ) Fosbrook , GB Wheelchair Basketballer said.
“It was fantastic to work directly with the volunteers. The University of Birmingham clearly has vibrant sporting opportunities and caters for all abilities. The group entered into the spirit of the activities with great enthusiasm and gave us some top feedback!”
To find out more about the Sporting Champions programme, please visit www.sportingchampions.org.uk