Teenager who turned life around named UK's sport student of year

A TEENAGER who turned his life around after getting involved with a national sports programme has now been named the UK's sport student of the year.

Conor Fitzpatrick, of Newbattle Community High School in Dalkeith, was given the accolade after taking part in the Sky Sports Living for Sport initiative, which promotes learning and personal development through sport and is run in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust.

The scheme saw Conor - who previously tended to skip a lot of his classes at school - get involved in a weekly programme of delivering sport to primary school pupils and was given the responsibility of motivating and mentoring the younger pupils.

He was named Scotland's student of the year in a series of UK-wide regional semi-finals and was yesterday crowned the overall UK Sky Sports Living for Sport Student of the Year 2010.

Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell presented Conor with his award.