THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT COMES TO LEICESTER

A life-size piste sticker and activities with Aspiration Funded athletes are prepared to engage students of Crown Hills Community College with fencing during the next few months.  

Fencing is conquering a space in the lives of over 1,400 students in Leicester-based Crown Hills Community College. Now in their second year as an Official Training Partner of BF, they are riding the wave of remarkable successes, particularly the bronze medal won in their first ever competition in March 2020 (read the full story here).

A year later, Crown Hills remembers their achievement, while at the same time the world prepares to watch their athletes competing in Tokyo. The Olympic spirit still lives, and Crown Hills students are about to have an immersion in it.

On Thursday 18^th March, a 12m by 1.8m piste sticker was installed in one of the school’s corridors. The eye-catching piste depicts fencing actions, shows fun facts about Olympians that left their mark in British fencing history, and challenges students to lunge their way through the piste. One of the aims of the project is to raise awareness of fencing as a sport and activity that has now been embedded into Crown Hills as a curricular and extra-curricular opportunity

This project, which has been partly funded by UK Sport’s Aspiration Fund, is inspiring the young fencers of the future as guest athletes plan to lead inspiring, practical, virtual sessions.

Crown Hills Sports Academy Manager James Giling said: “We are really excited by this unique sticker piste that has been installed for us. We wanted to more widely promote the opportunities for students to now try fencing and further raise the profile of the fencing programme we have established in partnership with British Fencing. Having this in school, to welcome students back with, will certainly be a talking piece for students and will no doubt inspire more pupils to think about fencing in a new way. We look forward to sharing more updates about how it is going at school in the lead up to the Olympic Games”

Follow #FencingInspires and @britishfencing on our social media channels to see photos of the installation and to know more about this and discover other inspiring moments thanks to The National Lottery and UK Sport’s Aspiration Fund.