Al PowellThe Olympics seems to rarely be out of the news at the moment, with the latest revelation that the budget for the London 2012 opening and closing ceremonies has doubled to £81m.
This equates to an estimated £122,500 per minute which few can argue hardly seems like good value for money at such times of austerity elsewhere in the economy. That debate aside, some Olympic news closer to home as gone under-reported. Did you know that York will be playing an important part in the preparations of two overseas nations?
Over one hundred training camps are spread across the UK providing athletes with a base from which to prepare, train and acclimatise ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. Yorkshire has eleven nations assigned here, comprising over thirty individual teams, including the Serbian National Olympic Committee, the USA diving team in Sheffield, the Russian diving team in Leeds and the Vietnamese National Olympic Committee in Bradford.
York will play host to the Gambian National Olympic Committee and the Olympic Committee of Guinea-Bissau across the Huntington Athletics Stadium, York College and University of York, with Guinea-Bissau also having the use of The York Community Gymnastics Club. Support will naturally be overwhelming in favour of Britain as we enter the year of the Olympics, however we have a feeling that Guinea-Bissau and Gambian will be picking up a few additional fans along the way!
