Team England visits local schools
11th October 2008Athletes from Team England visited two local schools today on the eve of the Commonwealth Youth Games taking place in Pune, India.
The organisers invited local schools and colleges to be part of the Games in order to make them as inclusive as possible. The objective of the programme, which has been named ‘Bond Forever’, is to bring the Commonwealth countries of the world closer together and help forge lasting bonds of friendship and support and develop sportsmanship.
Schools have selected a participating country as a partner nation and have studied its location, culture, customs and traditions, cuisine, language, history etc. as a learning project. Team England has been ‘adopted’ by Dr Kalmadi Shamarao High School in Pune and pupils welcomed athletes and coaches from swimming, badminton, athletics and table tennis.
Swimmers Helena Thornton, from Nottingham, and Natalie Durant, from Richmond, spoke on behalf of the athletes and were both full of enthusiasm for the project.
“The people were really friendly and the school was a really nice environment,” said Helena. “The children were really keen on swimming and wanted to hear how long we swam for, what we ate for breakfast and how we trained. One hundred children from the school are coming to watch the swimming on Thursday and we’ve told them all they have to cheer on Team England!”
“The children were great,” agreed Natalie. “They had obviously worked so hard to prepare for our visit. They had put together a PowerPoint presentation and written poems about England and then gave us a fantastic display of singing and dancing in traditional Indian costumes.”
Team England has an 80-strong team competing at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games, which run from 12th to 18th October. Team England has athletes competing in all nine sports at the Games – athletics, badminton, boxing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.
Team England finished first in the overall medals table at the first Commonwealth Youth Games, held in Edinburgh in 2000 with 36 golds, 41 silvers and 18 bronzes; and second at the 2004 Games in Bendigo, Australia, with 41 golds, 31 silvers and 29 bronzes.
For further information please contact the Commonwealth Games England press office at Matchtight Ltd on 01225 443998 or 07765 071 683 or Fran Bullock, the Team England press officer in Pune on 0091 960 443 5248. Please note, Pune time is 4½ hours ahead of UK time.
Commonwealth Games England is the organisation responsible for selecting and organising England's team at the Commonwealth Games. At the last Games, held in Melbourne in 2006, Team England were second only to hosts Australia on the medal table winning 36 gold, 40 silver and 34 bronze medals.
Sport England is a major funder of Team England and its aim is to encourage more people of all ages to start, stay and succeed in sport at every level and to make England the most active and successful sporting nation.