DSE Junior Regional Athletics Championships
The DSE Junior Regional Athletics Championships took place on Friday 25 April at Gateshead Stadium and was a fantastic success with 230 young athletes from across the North East taking part. The event was organised by England Athletics with the support of several other partners, including DSE, EFDS, Nationwide, npower, and the Tyne & Wear Sport Partnership.
Special Guests Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Stephen Miller and Lee Hunter watched the event, which saw over 60 athletes qualify for the DSE National Finals in Blackpool on 5th and 6th July. Those who have qualified will attend a regional squad training camp before the national event to receive top class coaching from experts. This training camp is part of the npower Active programme run by EFDS, in partnership with England Athletics.
The event was sponsored by the Nationwide Building Society, who became the main sponsor of DSE in November 2005 in a deal worth £1million over seven years, with additional funding and volunteer support from npower as part of the npower Active Programme.
Tony Blair arrived at Gateshead International Stadium later that day to support the work of England Athletics with his foundation. The Tony Blair Foundation looks to support volunteers into coaching across four sports, athletics, indoor rowing, tennis and football. The foundation has secured funding to offer an amazing 50% of level 1 course fees to volunteers who enrol with the Tony Blair Foundation across their four sports.
Eight lucky children who participated in the DSE Junior Regional Championships were invited to join Tony Blair at his promotional event. The young athletes got the chance to participate in some indoor rowing and extra athletics activity as well as having the opportunity to meet and have photos taken with Tony Blair.
The English Federation of Disability Sport North East hope to team up with the Tony Blair Foundation at some in their future npower Active events to help support new volunteers into coaching in order to develop further opportunities for young disabled athletes. By working in partnership with the Tony Blair Foundation, EFDS will be working to help volunteers to start, stay and succeed in coaching, and hopefully help to develop our future North East paralympians.
