Scottish Athletics celebrate a further year of Lottery Funding
Monday 30 August 2004
With the athletics season now well underway, sportscotland is delighted to announce a sixth year of funding to Scottish Athletics with an award of £50,000 from the Lottery Fund’s Junior Groups Programme, providing essential funding to some of Scotland’s most talented young athletes.
With many of the young athletes close to achieving top 2 UK rankings, the new round of funding will ensure the continuation of the International Potential Programme, which exposes young athletes to a high level of European and international competition, helping to establish them at GB level and leading on to senior GB representation.
This year’s programme will include training camps in the UK and abroad as preparation for competitions, such as the World Mountain Running Trophy in Italy in September and the European Cross Country Championships in Germany in December. By enabling athletes to compete at high level competitions they have the chance to experience opposition from talented athletes from around the world, helping to raise the standard of performance and achieve top results.
This year the team will be working towards achieving selection for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The selection process for the games is based on competition performance in 2005, therefore 2004 is a crucial training year for the young athletes.
The Scottish youth team have had a fantastic season so far, returning from the Amateur Athletic Association U17 and U15 Championships in Birmingham earlier this month with a grand total of sixteen medals, including eight gold. The team also achieved two new Scottish records and a number of personal bests.
Team member, Kris Robertson was on top form, winning gold in the 400m with a time of 47.08 seconds, gaining a new Scottish U17 record and the fastest time in the history of the AAA Championships.
The team are currently training for the UKA Young Athletes League finals in Derby this weekend where they are hoping to repeat their medal winning performance.
Geoff Wightman, Chief Executive of Scottish Athletics said: "This summer has seen numerous high points for young Scottish athletes, including victory at the Celtic Games, many medals at the AAAs and a record eleven athletes representing Great Britain under 23s.
"These successes are in no small way related to the sportscotland Junior Groups programme which assists with training, travel, equipment, coaching and numerous other costs associated with the sport.
"Scotland now has an excellent base of talented junior athletes which, I am sure will graduate into equally successful senior athletes on the international stage."
Alastair Dempster, Chairman of sportscotland added: "sportscotland's Junior Groups Programme is dedicated to providing structured programmes to nurture grassroots potential so that talented young athletes have the opportunity to reach the pinnacle of their sport.
“By providing quality training and the opportunity to compete in European and international competitions, we are helping to raise the standard of young Scottish athletes, ensuring that more go on to achieve success on the world stage.”
- The Junior Groups Programme provides support to groups of talented young people participating in a co-ordinated programme of coaching and competitive events over a minimum period of six months
- This is the final round of funding for the Junior Groups programme. The programme has now been replaced by Athlete Support, a merger of the previous Lottery programmes, Junior Groups and Talented Athlete Programme.