Private School News

Mount St Mary’s on its marks for 2012 Olympics

State-of-the-art facilities at Mount St Mary’s College are playing a key role in attracting prestigious sporting events and national teams to Derbyshire ahead of the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012.

Mount St Mary’s, based at Spinkhill, features in the London Organising Committee Pre-Games Training Camp Guide, which is designed to give teams and individual athletes a great selection of venues from which they can choose to prepare for the Games.

The College has first hand experience of hosting scores of international events and elite sport training camps including the GB Orienteering squad training camp, the Annual Academy for Great Britain Rugby Football League and the UK Athletics endurance squad training camp.

It is also the home base for the German Exiles Rugby League team, the Scottish Exiles RFU Academy and the North East Derbyshire Chargers RFL team.

Mount St Mary’s is a day and boarding school set in its own extensive grounds. Its Grade 1 Athletics Centre boasts an all-weather, six lane floodlit track and separate floodlit throws and jumps area, changing rooms, a physio/medical room and conference facilities.

Overnight accommodation for up to 178 people is available during the college term and in the holidays, with the majority of rooms having en-suite, tea and coffee making facilities and a TV.

Paul Scott, director of sport at Mount St Mary’s College, said: “Mount St Mary’s has a proud sporting heritage and following considerable investment, we have become a venue of excellence with exceptional athletics facilities and first class hotel style accommodation.

“The opportunity to train and live in one location makes Mount St Mary’s College very attractive to a variety of elite Olympic sports, particularly track and field athletics, and the popularity of the venue as a base for training camps is increasing every year.”

Advised by former British Olympic Association and current Rugby Football League nutritionist Jane Griffin, the catering department at Mount St Mary’s strives to ensure that meals provided to the athletes contain the correct nutritional value.

Jane said: “Having personally experienced the meals at Mount St Mary’s College for a week on separate occasions, the food is of a good quality prepared and cooked to a high standard. Choices and quantities at meal-times have been more than adequate for our elite young Rugby players.”

Photo: Students compete at Mount St Mary’s Grade 1 Athletics Centre.