Medway included in international pre-Games training camp guide
Medway is celebrating further sporting success today after being chosen as a potential Pre-Games training camp for London 2012 Olympics.
Five venues passed a series of rigorous checks from the London 2012 organisers to earn the coveted accolade out of more than a thousand venues submitted nationwide.
The successful Medway venues that have been officially approved for 15 Olympic sports, include:
Medway Park, the new £11m regional centre of sporting excellence being developed on the site of the existing Black Lion Leisure Centre. Medway Park has been listed for 12 Olympic sports:
athletics,
badminton,
basketball,
boxing,
fencing,
rhythmic gymnastics,
artistic gymnastics,
judo,
modern pentathlon,
taekwondo,
indoor volleyball,
wrestling.
Gillingham Football Club, for archery and football.
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The venues will now be included in the official London 2012 Pre-Games training camp brochure which will be distributed to more than 200 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) worldwide. This brochure is used by NOCs to identify facilities they may wish to use to prepare their elite athletes between 2010 and the start of the London Olympics on July 27, 2012. |
Cllr Howard Doe, Portfolio Holder for Community Services, said: "The inclusion of five of our facilities, including our flagship sporting regeneration project, Medway Park, puts us in a wonderful position to now go out and attract Olympic teams. The fact that we have Olympic-standard facilities in 15 different sports firmly establishes Medway's reputation as a high calibre sporting destination."
Medway Council chief executive Neil Davies added: "This is fantastic news for Medway and demonstrates the calibre of our sports facilities. Attracting an Olympic team to train in Medway in the build up to London 2012 would put Medway on the map and inspire the whole community, bringing the magic of the Olympics to life."
Steve Waud, manager of the Howard Table Tennis Centre, which is among the Medway venues to have been included, said: "The centre has gone from strength to strength since it opened in 2005, and to potentially have an Olympic team come here to train would be fantastic for us."
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The announcement is the latest major success for Medway Park, the regional centre of sporting excellence which is due to be completed in the summer of 2009. In January it was announced that the venue would be hosting the modern pentathlon world cup in April 2010, the first world sporting event ever to be hosted by Medway. |
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Peter Hart, chief executive of Pentathlon GB, the sport's national governing body, said: "We are delighted to be helping Medway develop its reputation for sporting excellence. The world cup in 2010 will allow overseas countries an excellent opportunity to view Medway Park at first hand and see what it has to offer as a pre-Games training venue."
The announcement by LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, relates to Olympic training camps. A decision on Paralympic training camps is due within the next two months.
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