Local Paralympian swimming stars Ollie Hynd and Charlotte Henshaw have given their seal of approval to a brand new state-of-the art sports village on the University of Nottingham’s University Park campus.
Visiting through the University’s link with swimming giant Nova Centurion club, the Paralympic medallists took a plunge in the pool as the David Ross Sports Village opened its doors to members for the first time.
The £40 million complex includes a 20 badminton-court sports hall, 12m climbing wall, martial arts dojo, 200-station fitness suite and even an indoor archery salle. Ollie Hynd, double gold-medallist in Rio in the 400m freestyle and 200m individual medley, commented;“The sports village here is incredible; it’s fantastic to have this kind of facility here in Nottingham. We have a great history of sport in the city, so to have every sports area you can possibly think of here at the University is great!”
Charlotte Henshaw, who added to her silver medal in London with a bronze in the pool in Brazil, added; “It was really important to me when choosing where to study that my University offered the facilities I needed to train and compete at the highest level. The David Ross Sports Village makes the University of Nottingham a serious option for elite athletes wishing to study alongside training.”
Daniel Tilley, Director of Sport continued; “The Sports Village is a fantastic addition to Nottingham’s portfolio of world-class sporting facilities and we’re proud to be located in Visit UK’s Home of Sport. We already have an exciting schedule of major events coming up, including the National Badminton League in November as well as the British Universities’ squash and table tennis championships, and look forward to securing further top-class events to the city of Nottingham.”
University of Nottingham students and staff, as well as members of the public, are now able to access the fitness suite, over one hundred weekly group exercise classes and the striking climbing and bouldering wall housed in the reception areas. Student clubs and teams are already training and competing in the huge sports hall, squash courts, martial arts dojo and bespoke salle offering table tennis, archery and fencing.
The remainder of the Sports Village, which includes an international standard glass-backed squash court, sports injury clinic, hydrotherapy pool and 60m sprint track is set to be operational from November. The new complex has been supported by a very significant commitment from Nottingham alumnus and Carphone Warehouse founder - David Ross, taking his total support for the University beyond £10m.
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Our academics can now be interviewed for broadcast via our Media Hub, which offers a Globelynx fixed camera and ISDN line facilities at University Park campus. For further information please contact a member of the Communications team on +44 (0)115 951 5798, email mediahub@nottingham.ac.uk or see the Globelynx website for how to register for this service.
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with a “distinct” approach to internationalisation, which rests on those full-scale campuses in China and Malaysia, as well as a large presence in its home city.’ (Times Good University Guide 2016). It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK among graduate employers and was named University of the Year for Graduate Employment in the 2017 The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide. It is ranked in the world’s top 75 by the QS World University Rankings 2015/16, and 8th in the UK for research power according to the Research Excellence Framework 2014. It has been voted the world’s greenest campus for four years running, according to Greenmetrics Ranking of World Universities.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest-ever fundraising campaign, is delivering the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. More news…