Sunday 23 September 2012

Olympic Legacy Series


Worksop College
Over the last few weeks I've been working on a series on the Olympic legacy for Sheffield. Here are some of the highlights:

I've been looking at whether it matters which school you go to if you want to win an Olympic medal. Even though Jess Ennis, Mo Farah, Greg Rutherford and Andy Murray all went to state schools, more than a third of British medal winners at London 2012 were from private schools. They educate just seven per cent of children. I've been to a private boarding school and state sports college to find out more...

English Institute of Sport
I looked into the figures and found out that Sheffield-based boxing works out as the best value GB sport in terms of of the amount of funding it gets to the numbers of medals won at the Olympics. It got £9.6 million of funding from UK Sport and the boxers brought home five medals, including golds for Nicola Adams, Anthony Joshua and Luke Campbell. For every medal won in boxing it cost less than two million pounds of funding, compared with athletics which cost more than four million per medal. The GB boxers train at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield...

Ponds Forge
The City of Sheffield Diving club, which is based at Ponds Forge, has set an ambitious target of providing at least half of the GB diving team at the 2020 Olympics. They've got a squad full of children aged as young as 10 who they're hoping could compete at the Olympics. I've been to see them train...

English Institute of Sport
I was alarmed to hear the coaches at the City of Sheffield athletics Club tell me that we're in danger of missing out on the next Jessica Ennis because there aren't anywhere near enough adults coming forward to coach. At the same time they've had unprecedented levels of interest from children wanting to try out athletics. I've been to a training session at the English Institute of Sport..