Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell meets York High School pupils

10:41am Saturday 26th June 2010

By Steve Carroll

OLYMPIC athlete Darren Campbell told York school pupils “sport saved my life” as he urged them to make the most of their opportunities.

The gold medallist in the 4x100 metres relay in Athens in 2004, and the 200m silver medallist four years earlier in Sydney, was at York High School meeting pupils and talking to them about his life.

Campbell, an ambassador for the Youth Sport Trust, delivered assemblies to pupils about his tough early upbringing in Manchester’s Moss Side – surrounded by violence, drugs and crime – and his subsequent rise to athletics stardom.

The former Great Britain track star also took part in training sessions on the fields at the specialist sports college before later presenting prizes at an awards evening at the Cornlands Road-based school.

In the assemblies, he showed a young audience his Olympic gold medal and told them: “What this signifies to me is that if you have got a dream, you believe in yourself, and you never, ever give up on that dream then you too will get your own – maybe not an Olympic medal – but you will achieve your dreams.

“From the age of 12, I told everybody I would go to the Olympic Games and they laughed. In 2004, when I stood at the top of the podium, I was laughing.

“This isn’t a rehearsal of your life. You get one shot to be as successful as you can be. I am here to tell you that if you want to take that leap of faith, and go out there and try and be as successful as you can be, then you can do it.”

Speaking to The Press afterwards, Campbell said: “It’s an opportunity to come and try and inspire young people.

“The objective is to try to get young people to believe in themselves and believe that their dreams are important and give them the tools and advice to allow them to go on and achieve them.

“It was a good afternoon. They listened and I hope they have taken on board some of the things that I went through in my life and hopefully it will give them the belief that, whatever is going on at this moment in time, they can still achieve whatever they want to achieve.

“I didn’t let adversity affect me. I didn’t let my circumstances take away my belief that I could achieve something in life and that’s what I am trying to pass on to them.”

Helen Shilleto, assistant faculty leader of sport and health at York High School, added: “The pupils were really excited.

“We had a build-up for a week and they were all looking forward to Darren’s visit. It was great to see in assemblies how engaged they were.

“There was no talking and they were really listening to what was going on. It was a true story to them and they can relate to what has happened in Darren’s past.”