London 2012

Building the Olympic legacy

Published 10 May 2012

The University of Brighton's head of sport and recreation, Sarah Hogg, and the president of the Students' Union, Terry Preston, were invited as guests of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to the official opening of the Olympic Stadium this week.

The invitation for the event came as the university prepares its contribution to the Olympic legacy goal of inspiring more people to take up sport and physical activity.

Sarah and Terry were among 40,000 people who attended the event. Terry is a student director of British Universities and Colleges (BUCS) whose athletics championships were used as the test event for the Olympic Stadium.

The University of Brighton is encouraging local people to become more active by increasing the ways in which they can access university sports facilities. These include individual swimming and fitness memberships to a wide range of local sports clubs and groups being based at the university from the Karen Pickering Swim School to Brighton and Hove Albion Girls Football Centre of Excellence.

The university also hosts a number of weekly children’s activity sessions and its facilities are increasingly hosting regional sports camps, festivals and training events. Nearly 1,000 local residents are members of the facilities and the university has been working with over 540 different community sports clubs since opening up its facilities to the public in 2000 at Eastbourne and 2011 in Falmer.

The university has also invested in new sports facilities and in enhancing existing facilities and equipment, resulting in many external groups seeking access to these facilities for their club training and competition time and their sporting events. It has also led to some external funding being provided from national governing bodies of sport.

In addition, the university is involved in the strategic development of sport locally, for instance, it ensures that those in local and regional sporting communities and organisations are aware of any mutual opportunities to be gained from working with the university.

Opening of the Olympic Stadium

Sarah Hogg said: "It was absolutely fantastic to be at the official opening of the stadium and especially to be invited by London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and to mingle with so many inspirational Olympians and the organisers of the Games.

"The university is playing a valuable role in developing a sporting legacy locally and there have been many benefits gained from using sport in this way. It has resulted in an enhanced role for the university within the local community, it has fostered an invaluable positive relationship between the university and the host communities in which we are based, and it has highlighted the key position that the university has in encouraging more people to be more active, more often."