The Corsham School Team Bath Netball players visit Amy loves her bike !


Amy began competitive cycling following the London 2012 Olympics. Aged 10, she showed an interest so we attended a British Cycling ‘Go Ride’ session at an outdoor velodrome. With no hesitation, Amy got on the track bike and rode the banking straight off. She was hooked.


Now, in year 10 at St Edmunds School in Salisbury, Amy trains hard and competes regularly, juggling the demands of school and sport. The school supports her, allowing her extended deadlines for homework, when competing at National Events, and celebrating her effort and achievements. Her love of sport is recognised and she has been given the opportunity to attend a number of events, learning sports leadership skills, dancing at the Playhouse in Salisbury, sailing, horse riding and skiing.


During the winter Amy focuses on cyclo cross, a gruelling, muddy sport, not for the faint hearted. She finished the 2014/2015 season as 1st under 14 girl in the regional league. In the 2016/2017 season she is currently 5th under 16 girl, ranked 17th nationally. She has just finished the National Trophy series of races and training is now focused on the final event of the season – the National Championships in Bradford on 6th of January, where she is aiming for a Top 10 finish. Focus then moves to Cross Country Mountain biking. In the 2016 season Amy finished 3rd girl in the regional MTB league and was selected to represent the South of England in the Inter Regional MTB championships in Scotland.


The summer is dedicated to road and track racing. Although Amy hasn’t focused on road racing to date, she was invited to race the Ride London Road race as part of


Team South, unfortunately she was travelling to Scotland to compete in the MTB Regional Championships and was unable to accept. She was also selected to attend a British Cycling Regional School of Racing in Cardiff, where she spent a full day learning new skills alongside the best riders in her age group from the South, South West and Wales.


Since that first experience at the velodrome, Amy has always enjoyed training and racing fixed wheel bikes. In her first year on the track she qualified for the National Youth Omnium finals and more recently was lucky enough to ride at the Lee Valley Olympic velodrome with Olympian Jo Rowsell Shand.


Amy benefits from cycling in so many ways, she is healthy, confident, focused, organised, resilient, has a fantastic group of like-minded friends and loves what she does.


Years 10, 11 and 12 were treated to a master-class from Team Bath Netball stars Eboni Beckford- Chambers and Jess Shaw.


They participated in practical sessions with warm up drills, followed by a focus on attacking and defending. The netballers also had an opportunity to ask questions related to play, explained how they had balanced their academic and sporting commitments, and shared advice on the importance of healthy eating and pursuing an active lifestyle. “It has been really good to visit Corsham School and give the girls some skills to work on and share our experiences with them,” said Jess. The two Team Bath players worked with 14 promising netballers.


Eboni commented, “Netball is getting so much bigger and it is important to get everyone involved. It’s also important to make young people aware


Sky Ambassador Programme visit


In the autumn term we welcomed Tom Reed, Olympic Judo player and Commonwealth Games Medallist and Jamie Barrow, Britain’s fastest snowboarder and previously, part of Britain’s Snowboarding Cross team, to The Corsham School.


Tom worked with our Sports Leaders on their newly implemented ‘Leaders Training Programme’. Here they were able to get hand on with the Judo kit and learned a variety of Judo techniques, including how not to get winded, ‘break fall’ and a basic throw. Tom then joined our A level students for a Q&A on nutrition and training.


Discussion centred on how his diet changed during training and competing,


injuries and prevention and his achievements. The students gained a much valued first hand insight into training at a professional level. The Corsham School has an established relationship with the Sky Ambassador Programme and takes part in 4 days of visits from professional athletes over the course of a year.


of pursuing a healthy, active lifestyle.” Among the young netballers taking part in the session at Corsham School was Year 12 student Holly Trippe, who plays for Corsham Town Netball Club.


Holly said “It’s been pretty cool having Eboni and Jess here, I have watched a lot of their matches in the Superleague, they are at a stage of their career that I really want to get to, so it’s been great to learn from them and get their advice on things like coping with injury and combining education and sport.”


Wiltshire and Swindon Relay 17


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