Girls Go Gold

On the morning of Wednesday 21 September, 13 of our top sportswomen from school descended upon Edgbaston High School, the hosts of this year's GSA 'Girls Go Gold' Conference.

Baroness Sue Campbell, Chair of UK Sport, started proceedings with her keynote speech. She held the room spellbound as she gave an inspiring address on how to achieve success.

The schedule was busy with a constant roundabout of specialised workshops hosted by professional athletes and experts in sports-related fields, such as 'Sport Psychology in Applied Practice', 'Sport Science' and 'A Week in the Life of an Elite Student Athlete'. Hannah England (Silver 1500m at the recent World Championship) gave a very insightful account of her day to day training regime and how she coped with training alongside her studies. For those girls wishing or considering studying Sport at university, Zena Wooldridge, Director of Sport at University of Birmingham, was on hand to offer guidance and information on sport scholarships and the structure of sport at university.

It was a busy morning of activity, building up to the hotly-anticipated arrival of the special Guest Speaker, Dame Kelly Holmes. Her inspiring speech contained clips of her amazing performances at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and how she had to work exceptionally hard against the odds to achieve. It filled the girls with huge confidence as she spoke of how her passion for sport and athletics all started as a young girl at school and how all the girls there have the potential to one day achieve international success, like her.

It was an exciting and motivating day, enjoyed by all.