The UK School Games, covering athletics, gymnastics, swimming, fencing and table tennis, are being staged at venues across Glasgow between September 7 and 10. Around 1,200 young athletes will stay in an Olympic-style village.
“The idea is to give the young people taking part experience of a multi-sport event,” said a spokeswoman for the Youth Sport Trust, which is co-ordinating the competition. Each evening there will be sports-related events, including looking at drug awareness and lifestyle management.
One of the events will take place on September 9, at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall, when gymnastic teams from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, will take part in a competition organised by the British Schools Gymnastics Association.
But while Joan Jackman, the association’s chair, says she expects it to be an impressive event, she does not think it will make a substantial impact on Britain’s sporting future.
“I’m not saying that nobody new might come through,” she said. “But the athletes expected to be in the squad for 2012 have already been selected.
I’m not resentful. Ultimately it was and will be a good idea.”
