Great Britain sprinter Jodie Williams dropped into a St Albans primary school to launch the new online service Athletes Direct www.athletesdirect.org.
The European and Commonwealth medallist from Hertfordshire visited Alban City School on Wednesday to run coaching sessions for Year 2 pupils and carry out a question and answer session with them all under the British Athletes Commission’s new programme.
The Athletes Direct service links schools, colleges and businesses with their members - who are elite athletes, such as Williams, on World Class Programmes - to create meaningful and memorable events.
Williams, who won 200m silver and 4x100m relay bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and 200m silver and 4x100m relay gold at the European Championships last year, said: “As athletes people like these kids look up to us and it’s so important to give back to them and show them that they can do whatever they want as well.
“Just making sure they enjoy PE because exercise is so important, things like this get them into it and get them into the spirit and make sure they’re enjoying their sport.”
Williams was joined on her visit by Ian Braid, chief executive of the British Athletes Commission and St Albans mayor Cllr Geoff Harrison.
Braid said: “The British Athletes commission that I represent has over 1,300 members who are all elite athletes and we think it’s an important aspect to help try to inspire future generations of kids for the benefit of exercise in its own right and team building etc.
“Our platform online, Athletes Direct, is a simple opportunity for schools, colleges and businesses to link with our athletes directly so that they can go into events like this morning which will hopefully be memorable for kids and will encourage them to take part exercise in the future.”
Alban City headteacher Janet Goddard, added: “It was fantastic for the children to meet Jodie and I hope it will encourage them to be active.”
Visit www.athletesdirect.org to find out more about the programme.
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