News

Olympic gold medallists Linford Christie and Darren Campbell are coming to Hawkinge to meet local youngsters at the Street Athletics competition to be held in the village next week.

Linford and Darren will be arriving at 2.30pm and staying to support the youngsters until 6.30pm.

The event held in large towns and cities throughout England and Scotland will take place in the Lidl car park, Haven Drive, Hawkinge on Friday 20 July. Registration is between 3.30pm and 5.00pm and the races take place between 4.30pm and 6.30pm.

The winners and first runner-up in each age category at the Grand Final in Manchester on 15 September will receive a year’s kit sponsorship from Reebok and ongoing mentoring from Linford and Darren.

Street Athletics was started by Olympic gold medallists Christie and Campbell two years ago, and has already seen thousands of children around the country take part and, more importantly, has taken hundreds of them off the streets and into serious training and competition on the track.

With sponsorship from Gaz de France recently signed, some of last year's top sprinters headed for Paris last weekend to see the Golden League meeting for themselves.

The Street Athletics initiative was launched in 2005 by Christie's Nuff Respect organisation. By using sport - and music - the scheme has attracted many youngsters who feel disengaged with society and have not been catered for by any existing grassroots schemes. Young people are invited to turn up to an area in their city and race.

In the first year the event was focused on Manchester, where more than 17 areas of the city were visited by Christie and Campbell. In 2006 they expanded the programme to areas of London, Bristol and Liverpool. It has been a unbridled success.

"It really struck me at one of the finals how athletic so many of these kids were, how they were more relaxed because of the more 'informal' setting, and I had the biggest shock when one of our boys in one of the finals was running with an ASBO tag. It just shows what can be done," Christie explained.

He added: "Street Athletics is an amazing project which started in 2005 and has seen thousands of young people taking part in races and enjoying the same thing that got the two of us inspired to make athletics part of our lives.

"It started with challenging kids from other estates and neighbourhoods to race against us and if we hadn't done that we wouldn't have got where we are today. The best thing about it is you don't need anything to come and take part. No expensive equipment, no club membership, no entry fee. . . just a desire to take part and realise your ambitions and dreams."

A Street Athletics session consists of a series of races and will result in a final race for each age group. Races are split into four age groups (U-20, U-17, U-15 and U-13) for boys and girls. The top two from each age group category are invited to attend the grand final event. Sixteen athletes from each city race at the final. The only rule is that participants do not wear spikes in the heats or in the grand final.

This year, Street Athletics is taking place in the following cities: Birmingham, Bristol, Hawkinge, Newcastle and Gateshead, Sheffield, Liverpool north and south, London (Lambeth, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hackney, Wandsworth and Sutton) Manchester, Inverness, Glasgow, Stranraer, Stevenston, Shotts, Dundee, Edinburgh. You just need to turn up, register and run! To find out the dates, just e-mail info@streetathletics.co.uk.

"Just e-mail us and you can get all the details, or go onto the website - www.streetathletics.co.uk - to find out about Street Athletics," Christie said. "You just need to bring your bad self to give it your all and compete. See you on the street."