MORE than a hundred talented athletes from Greneway and Meridian schools used the world class sporting facilities at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre in North London.

It is an award winning state of the art training facility and the largest indoor and outdoor athletics centre, serving London and the South of England.

It is also home to three of the four British track and field medallists from the Beijing Olympic Games.

Also it was one of the key London 2012 training venues for Olympic and Paralympic athletes last summer.

The schools travelled to further extend and enrich the athletic experiences of their young athletes by giving them the opportunity to use the same venue as some of the top athletes in the world.

“We wanted to inspire our talented athletes to achieve their PBs through living the Olympic and Paralympic values and where better than here, where you feel inspired to perform citius, altius, fortius,” said Greneway assistant headteacher Terry Graves.

Every athlete had two, specific event training sessions, where they followed individually tailored programmes expertly planned and coached by the PE teachers from both schools.

Russell Franklin, Meridian head of PE reinforced the feelings of all the teachers, adding: “A world class venue has bought the best out in our talented athletes.”

One of the happy and inspired Year 7 athletes, said: “This whole experience was amazing,” and an experienced Year 13 campaigner, added: “[This was] a brilliant opportunity that has really inspired me to run faster, jump higher and be stronger.”