Three of Britain's hottest athletic talents joined the search for Medway's potential Olympians of the future.

Sprinter Rikki Fifton and sprint hurdlers Gemma Bennett and Richard Alleyne joined hundreds of budding young athletes at Medway and Maidstone Athletics Club's Quest for Olympians day at Deangate Stadium.

The international athletes shared their expertise with more than 200 youngsters as teams from 12 Medway secondary schools tackled five athletic events under the expert eye of Medway and Maidstone Athletics Club coaches.

The aim of the event was to raise the profile of athletics and help identify athletes with the potential for success.

Medway elite athlete Stuart Hitchcock was also on hand on the day to help coach the kids in triple jump, an event in which he competes for Great Britain.

After trying their hand at the disciplines of sprinting, hurdling, javelin, long jump and triple jump, the children were given the chance to quiz the star guests about their training, successes, and hopes for competing in London 2012.

Bennett, who is Britain's number two ranked 100m hurdler, said: "It's a great idea doing things like this with kids. A lot of kids go into football and rugby, so it's great to see a lot more going into athletics with 2012 coming to London."

Alleyene, Britain's number two 110m hurdler, added: "We definitely need to do more things like this to see if there is talent out there."

Fifton, the UK's second fastest man over 200m, had some words of encouragement for all of the youngsters who took part. He said: "If you keep at it, you can always be good at something."

Participants who showed promise in each of the events during the day had their names noted. The winning school, calculated on the number of pupil names taken during the day, was Rochester Maths.

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