Esprit becomes ‘world’ training centre

Picture: Great Britain and England team members

Left to Right – Francesca Fox, Rachel Ennis, Lynne Hutchinson, Francesca Jones, Keziah Gore.

Swindon gymnastics club Esprit is set to become a training camp for the Great Britain and English Gymnastics Teams, to prepare them for the upcoming World Championships in Moscow and Commonwealth Games in India.

The local club who recently took over the sports centre at the old Headlands Grove School site are developing it into an International standard gymnastics facility for Swindon.

It heard the news this week that it had been selected, out of all the clubs in the country, to host Britain’s best gymnasts, who are currently preparing for the World Championships in Moscow later this month and XIX Commonwealth games in Delhi, India in October.

A quote from British Gymnastics said, “The Esprit Academy has been awarded the pre-event training camp ahead of the 30th World Championships in Moscow, and the XIX Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The camp will be a combined preparatory session for the British Team and English Commonwealth Team and led by coaches appointed as team officials for the two events

The camp will also incorporate the English Championships in September at GMAC, Birmingham, as part of the Championship preparation.

In addition to this great news, Esprit’s Deb Hows has been awarded the post of head coach to lead the Great Britain team in their trip to Moscow for the World Championships, whilst Bath’s Sarah Binding will head up the English/Welsh team to India for the Commonwealth Games. Both coaches are working together at the training camp.

Club Chairman, Mark Hows said, “we are thrilled to have been chosen to host the English and Great Britain team here at Esprit and extremely proud that Esprit’s head coach, Deb Hows has been appointed as Great Britain coach for the trip to Moscow.

We still have a way to go before our new home is completely finished, but being chosen to host the Great Britain and English teams, preparing for two massive competitions, shows we’re already achieving the world class standards we set ourselves”.

Esprit has only been in its new home at Headlands since January and to have been selected for such a high profile role, proves the club is already one of the very best in the country.

It is a club that caters for all levels and ages, pre-school to senior elite athletes, and with a growing membership of more than 600, looks set to continue producing some of the country’s finest gymnasts, in one of the best equipped gymnastic facilities around.

Hows concluded, “Esprit is great club with a fantastic team of coaches, most of whom have been taught through the clubs own, in-house, training scheme.

We are extremelly proud of what we have achieved so far, but this is just the beginning, as we want to put Swindon firmly on the Gymnastics map and have the rest of the town be as proud of the club as we are”.