Celebrating Olympic Success

Hatfield House celebration December 2012

Hertfordshire’s future Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls mingled with medal-winning London 2012 stars at a special celebration at Hatfield House on Monday 12 November 2012.

Olympic gold medal winner

Etienne Stott, who took Britain’s first ever Olympic gold in the C2 Categoryof the Canoe Slalom with team-mate Tim Baillie in the London 2012 Games,signed dozens of autographs and chatted with guests about his win in front of a 12,000-strong crowd at Hertfordshire’s Lee Valley White Water Centre on 2 August.

“Since the Olympics the reaction has been overwhelming. Everyone is still excited by the success of Team GB and Paralympics GB and everyone’s talking about the legacy and how we all need to take action to make the most of this opportunity. Everything has been topsy-turvy since the Games but the thing I’ve loved the most is going to schools and community events – meeting young people and hopefully inspiring them.”

Promoting British canoeing

Silver medallist in the same event, Richard Hounslow, 30, said: “The facilities in Hertfordshire are fantastic. Training is ticking over with one session a day at the moment; ours is not a big sport and we have to make the most of this opportunity to promote British canoeing.”

Also present was Paralympic swimmer James O’Shea, 34. A former pupil of Hemel Hempstead’s John F Kennedy School, he just missed out on a medal in his debut Games at the London 2012 final, finishing fourth, but he’s already looking forward to Rio.

Paralympic hopeful Michael Pope, 18, from St Albans, missed out on London 2012 by two days but is preparing for next year’s World Dwarf Games in America and the Paralympics in 2016.

Inspirational

The discus and shot put athlete, who is a pupil at Bushey Meads School, Watford, said:“It’s inspirational to meet these athletes who have worked so hard throughout their career to get to London.”

Lord Salisbury, Patron of the Hertfordshire Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Partnership and co-host of the event, said:“We were proud to support the extraordinary efforts of our county to make sure our part in the greatest Olympiad was an extraordinarily successful one.”