Scheme to make city Europe's sporting capital targets stars

Published on Friday 13 November 2009 09:08

OLYMPIC heroes Chris Hoy and David Florence could become Sporting Champions for Edinburgh in the hope of turning the city into the most active in Europe.

The scheme is one of a series of spin-offs from the 2012 Olympics and 2014 Commonwealth Games which it is hoped will harness public interest in the competitions to turn Edinburgh into Europe's sporting capital by 2020.

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Expected to launch next year, it will see top athletes encouraging others to take up sports, whether they want to aim for Olympic and Commonwealth glory, or just become fitter and healthier.

As well as the medallists, the team could include up-and-coming athletes such as 13-year-old diver Grace Reid, who is a member of Edinburgh Diving Club and hopes to make her Commonwealth debut at the Glasgow games in 2014.

The city's culture and sport leader, Councillor Deidre Brock, said: "Edinburgh can be enormously proud of being home to a host of hugely talented and internationally successful athletes and sportsmen and women.

"The network of Sporting Champions will be made up of top athletes who are aiming to compete in the Commonwealth Games. They will effectively be ambassadors whose role is to promote sport and physical activity to communities across the city, helping us towards our aim of being the most physically active city in Europe by 2020."

The city council will run the scheme in collaboration with the East of Scotland Institute of Sport. Manager Michael Cavanagh, who is also chairman of Commonwealth Games Scotland, said he hoped to include cyclist Chris Hoy and canoeist David Florence in the line-up. Both grew up in the Murrayfield area, although Hoy now lives in Manchester and Florence is based in Nottingham.

Mr Cavanagh said: "There are obviously some very high-profile athletes we'd like to get access to. Chris Hoy these days is in great demand so he's more challenging to get hold of now than he was a couple of years ago. David Florence is certainly back in Edinburgh quite regularly, so it'd be great to work with him."

He said the Champions would also inspire people to succeed in other fields:

"The message is that having talent is just the start, the only way you're going to make it to the top is to work incredibly hard. It's not just about being talented, it's about being really committed. It's about everything in life that you want to achieve, it's not that everybody's going to want to be a world-class athlete.

"The same message applies whether it's sport or work or education. If you work hard you'll succeed."

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