Golden girl Dame Kelly Holmes opens university sports centre

STUDENTS stuck gold at the opening of a new state-of-the-art sports centre in Canterbury today (Friday)

The building, at Canterbury Christ Church University, was officially opened by double Olympic medal winner Dame Kelly Holmes.

Golden girl: Dame Kelly chats to sports scholars at the opening of Christ Church University's new £5 million sports centre CTBG050310sports-3.JPG

The former 800 metre runner officially declared the £5 million sports centre on Pilgrims Way open after going on a tour of the university's sports science department and greeting scholarship students.

She said: "It's great to see enthusiastic students. At the end of the day it's the support they receive that is going to help take them all the way to the top."

Speaking about the university's many athletes, Dame Kelly, who is from Kent, said: "It's great as a local girl to come back and see the up and coming talent. These guys have dreams and ambitions just like me when I was running around Kent and dreaming of the Olympic games.

"The journey is never easy and people don't see the training, dedication, and pain that goes into it. That's when you really need a team behind you."

The opening was also attended by former England cricketer Derek Underwood and double hockey Olympian Mel Clewlow.

The centre was built in conjunction with Barton Court Grammar School who provided land for the project.

Christ Church Vice-chancellor Michael Wright said: "One of the challenges we face is that we don't have a land bank for new buildings. However on this occasion Barton Court Grammar School had an under utilised piece of land. They had the land but no money and we had the financial resources but no land so we had a great opportunity to work with the school."

The Vice chancellor said the development was part of a three pronged approach to bring the University facilities up to scratch.

He said: "The origins lie some years ago when we were thinking about the future of the university. We needed to enhance the range of services and facilities to our staff. The first was the library, the second was sport and the third was music. The third will follow in due course."

For more information visit www.canterbury.ac.uk.