Olympics

The success of the British team, including those with Suffolk links such as the cyclist Victoria Pendleton and horsewoman Sharon Hunt, has created genuine excitement about the 2012 Games. Suffolk County Council is clearly keen to ride the wave all the way to London.

The Suffolk School of Samba and the Red Rose Theatre Chain were on hand to provide a colourful backdrop at the County's Endeavour House headquarters in Ipswich.

Jeremy Pembroke, who's the Conservative Leader of the County Council, took the new flag from the lion's mouth: "We will do it differently, but we will do it just as well and I want Suffolk to be a real lead player up to 2012.

"Providing training grounds, encouraging people to come here and stay, it'll be so easy to get to Stratford and I'm really looking forward to it."

Two projects were launched at the aptly-named Endeavour House in Ipswich. The first with the showing of two new films documenting Suffolk's Olympic and Paralympic past called "Lap of Honour."

The first was of Stan Cox, who now lives in Felixstowe. He competed in the London Games in 1948 in the 10,000m and spoke of how he had to take a day off work to compete and how one perk of being on the Olympic team was an extra ration of chocolate.

The second film was about Kevin Curtis who won gold in the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics in sailing.

Ruth Gillan is from Colchester & Ipswich Museum Service, one of the partners behind the Lap of Honour project: "While people are concentrating on the sporting achievements, for me it's the personal side of things because it de-mystifies things.

"The project will start in earnest in September and it's not just that we want to record everyone in video, but collect things that are out their, like snippets of stories, photographs or memorabilia and anything to do with Olympic heritage.

"This will all progress up until 2012, so hopefully by the end of it we'll have a great deal to form an exhibition to show everybody."

They're in the money

The second part of proceedings was the presentation of the first five Sportaid scholarships. The County Council will give 12 awards of £1500 every year until 2012. To qualify athletes need to be in the top three nationally in their sport.

The first five went to sailor James Hayward, Ipswich hockey player Joshua Godfrey, javelin thrower Matti Mortimore, cross country runner Shaun Webb and rower Laurence Dugdale.

James goes to Thomas Mills High School in Framlingham and he's currently ranked 3rd in Great Britain for his class: "The sailing for the London games will be in Weymouth. Most of my training is done down there so I'll be used to the conditions.

"It's a long four years really. I sail a Cadet which isn't Olympic class at the moment so I'll have to move up to a 420 then a 470 class. That's quite a lot to do in four years."

Shaun from Brantham is also expecting a lot of work for the next four years: "You need help form the people around you but when you're in the race it's just up to you.

"It definitely hurts. The training, when I'm up the track at Northgate and on the weekends - it's horrible!

"Going through pain in races is horrible, but it all pays off eventually when you're wearing your country's vest."

There are seven more Sportaid Scholarships available for this year. Visit the County Council for more details about the funding system.

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