Inspiring the next generation

 Congratulations Team GB what an amazing performance at the Olympics and the Para Olympics!

Let’s hope that the legacy of London 2012 will be that we have a generation of kids who now want to get out there and be best that they can – whatever their chosen field.

Young people now have a whole host of the new heroes to look up to whether it be the poster girl of the games Jessica Ennis or those that were unknown before the games such as Max Whitlock who won two bronze medals in the gymnastics or David Weir in the para games  – surely these people are the role models we want our children to look up to as opposed to the ‘wannabe’ tv reality stars.

What has been so impressive about Team GB is both their performance on the sporting field and their attitude in both victory and defeat. None of the athletes believed it was their God given right to win a medal.  Whilst they all have a self-believe in their abilities all of them understood it is only through hard work and working with the experts in their field that they would reach Olympic glory. 

At Eureka whilst we hope that 2012 will have discovered the next Jessica Ennis or Bradley Wiggins our hopes are less of Gold Medals and more about seeing our young people gaining a renewed sense of self-belief.

Whilst only a handful of the next generation will be performing at Rio in 2016 or the Olympics in 2020 with the same self-belief, motivation and hard work who knows what our young people can achieve.

Having worked with the next generation via our NEET and school programmes we have witnessed what a difference the right training and support makes to a young person’s chances in life.  

We know that often what young people have learned from negative role models around them is poor work ethic, low self belief and low motivation. What we seek to do at Eureka is to help young people gain some sense of focus for their life and build their motivation and their skills to help them achieve success.

If the next generation can grasp this new found self-belief that our young athletes have shown then London 2012 will leave a lasting legacy that will have a profound effect on the nation both on and off the sporting field.