Lothians wins race to host athletes in Games training

TEAMS of athletes from around the world are set to use the Lothians as a training base for the London Olympics in 2012.

Four venues in the Lothians have beaten off competition from around the UK to be included in the official guide of training facilities drawn up by the London Organising Committee.

The move was hailed today as putting Edinburgh on the map for world sporting events, creating jobs and acting as a catalyst for local sport.

The guide will now be circulated to all national Olympic committees, which can then decide where they base themselves or where to send individual athletes to prepare and acclimatise in the weeks before the London Games.

Edinburgh's Royal Commonwealth Pool – due to undergo a major refurbishment within the next few years – is listed as a pre-Games training camp for swimming, diving, synchronised swimming and water polo.

Heriot-Watt University's sports centre at Riccarton will be available for fencing, football, judo, taekwondo and wrestling.

The Peffermill National Hockey Academy is being offered for hockey teams to prepare.

And the Scottish National Equestrian Centre at Oatridge, West Lothian, has been designated as a training camp for equestrian events.

There were 1000 applications for the places in the guide, with 600 eventually chosen.

Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, said hosting training camps provided a great opportunity for towns throughout the UK to get involved in the Games.

City council sports leader Deidre Brock said she was pleased the Commonwealth Pool had been included.

She said: "This facility has a long tradition as a national training facility and improvements to it, which are currently being tendered for, will make it world class. The schedule of works is due to be complete by spring 2011, which will give national athletes more than a year in training time to use the pool alongside any visiting national teams who choose to use the site prior to the London Olympics in 2012."

Mike Fitchett, director of sport and exercise at Heriot-Watt, said athletes choosing to go to Riccarton would have access not just to extensive facilities, but also to physiotherapists and other staff at its sports medicine centre.

Accommodation would also be made available on the campus.

And he said hosting the training camp would be a shop window for the university. He said: "It will highlight to an audience of millions what we at Heriot-Watt have to offer in terms of facilities."

Jim Aitken, director of sport and exercise at Edinburgh University, said being named as a pre-Games training camp was another accolade for the hockey academy at Peffermill, which has just won the bid to host the 2010 world university hockey championships.

He said: "This is great news for the city and the university. It is putting Edinburgh on the map for world sporting events."

Athletes would be able to use accommodation at Pollock Halls, "an ideal Olympic village".

Livingston Labour MP Jim Devine, meanwhile, welcomed the inclusion of the Scottish National Equestrian Centre at Oatridge on the list of pre-Games training camps.