Tuesday 4 March 2008
sportscotland welcomed the news from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) that twenty-eight sports facilities throughout Scotland will appear in the London 2012 Organising Committee’s Pre‑Games Training Camp Guide.
The venues, located throughout the country, will offer facilities for a wide range of Olympic sports, catering for 30 out of 36 Olympic disciplines.
The guide, which will be published in the Chinese capital, Beijing, lists high quality sports facilities which are capable of hosting visiting teams or individual athletes wishing to prepare to take part in the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
sportscotland, co-ordinated applications from Scottish sports facilities that wanted to be part of the guide.
Commenting, Stewart Harris, Chief Executive of sportscotland said: “We are delighted to see that 80% of Scottish applicants have been included in the LOCOG guide, with a wide geographical spread across the country. We clearly have a good range of both specialist and multi-sport facilities that meet LOCOG’s stringent criteria and it is great news that we are able to cater for 30 out of the 36 Olympic disciplines.
“The Scottish Government’s National and Regional Sports Facilities Programme funded through sportscotland is currently underway and will play a major part in delivering top class training and competition facilities for the future, in the build up to both London 2012 and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.”
Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the London Organising Committee, said: “We said that we wanted the London Games to be for athletes, and the facilities listed in this Guide will really help overseas athletes prepare well. It also provides a great opportunity for towns throughout the UK to get involved in our plans.
“The process we have been through shows a great spread of high quality facilities throughout the UK that can be used by elite level athletes. The new website will continue to be an asset to keep an up-to-date log of the elite facilities we have across the UK.”
Notes to Editors
- The successful venues include a number of multi-sports sites and several specialist facilities. The latter includes the target-shooting centre at Denwood in Aberdeen, the Scottish National Equestrian Centre in West Lothian, sailing at Cumbrae and the Scottish Sailing Institute at Largs, and the rowing lake at Strathclyde Country Park.
- Athletics will be well catered for with facilities at Grangemouth, Scotstoun, Wishaw and Pitreavie Athletics Centre in Fife, which includes the recently opened indoor training hall. Scotland’s strength in countryside sports has been recognised with the inclusion of mountain bike trails at Glentress in the Borders, Glenmore Lodge in the Cairngorms, the Nevis Range in Lochaber and Dumfries & Galloway.
- The strength of Scotland’s university sports facilities has been recognised with Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Robert Gordons and Stirling universities all being included in the guide. Other multi-sport venues include Inverclyde National Centre at Largs, the Palace of Art in Glasgow and Wishaw Sports Centre.
- A number of major sports projects in the pipeline will deliver Olympic standard training facilities in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. These include three major sports centres currently under construction at Linksfield in Aberdeen, Forthbank in Stirling and the DG One Centre in Dumfries as well as the facility at Ravenscraig in Motherwell where construction is due to start next month. A refurbished Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh will be able to accommodate the full range of aquatic sports including swimming, diving synchronised swimming and water polo.
- Over 600 facilities will appear in the Guide, to be published at the Beijing Games. The Guide will be circulated to all National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and National Paralympic Committees (NPCs). These organisations will then decide where they base themselves or where to send individual athletes to prepare and acclimatise for London 2012.
- The full list of Scottish facilities is available at http://www.london2012.com. Facilities were invited to apply in July 2006. The assessment process was carried out during 2007. For further information please contact the London Organising Committee Press Office on 0203 2012 100.