International Links
World Leaders in Artistic Gymnastics Establish Exchange Programme with Glasgow
Cream of Malawi's Young Athletes Enrol at the School - April 2008
Competition Success in Malawi - October 2007
Olympic Reserve School Exchange
International Exchange Como Secondary College in Perth, Australia
Scholarship Opportunity for Malawi Youngsters
World Leaders in Artistic Gymnastics Establish Exchange Programme with Glasgow - May 2008
In Glasgow’s twin city of Rostov-on-Don in Russia there is a wealth of talent to be found in its Olympic Reserve School. Founded in 1948, this school specialises in the sport of artistic gymnastics. Its focus is to produce gymnasts who will compete and win at the Olympic Games and it does just that! Olympic Prize Winners include Elena Produnova (Olympic Prize Winner 2000) and Maria Kruychkova (Olympic Prize Winner Athens 2004 - pictured above). This Olympic Reserve School is regarded as one of the best gymnastic complexes in Russia.
An exciting partnership programme has been developed between the Olympic Reserve School in Rostov-On-Don and the Glasgow School of Sport, Scotland’s national sports school based at Bellahouston Academy in Glasgow.
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Russian gymnasts |
This exchange programme provides a unique opportunity for Glasgow to learn from world leaders in the sport of artistic gymnastics. It is a partnership of excellence that will undoubtedly raise standards of performance both within Glasgow and Scotland.
This exchange programme was launched in May 2008 when two honoured coaches and Vladmir Fudimov the head of the Olympic Reserve School visited Glasgow.
For almost two weeks these gymnasts and coaches, Lia Fudimova and Olga Sagina (both coaches to Olympic Prize Winners) trained at Bellahouston Gymnastics Centre providing a unique opportunity for the School of Sport gymnasts, the City of Glasgow gymnasts and coaches to observe and train alongside the best in the world.
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Russian gymnasts |
Over 400 aspiring gymnasts, coaches and those with an interest in world-class performance watched young Russian gymnasts groomed for Olympic stardom perform in two demonstrations. Seven top gymnasts from Glasgow School of Sport and the City of Glasgow Gymnastics Club also performed at this display and put on an outstanding display of Scottish talent. Visit the photo-gallery for some of the highlights and the video library to watch Julia Belokobylskaya on beam and Anastasia Sidorova on bars. Scottish coaches also benefited from the opportunity to participate in coach education workshops led by these Russian experts.
In October 2008 the seven gymnasts from the Glasgow School of Sport and the City of Glasgow Gymnastics Club, and coaches Philippa Musikant (HPC Glasgow School of Sport), Sandra Walsh (City of Glasgow Gymnastics Club) and Lynne Donaghy (former GSOS pupil and Commonwealth competitor 2002) will visit the Olympic Reserve School in Russia to learn from the techniques and methods of these world leaders.
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Maria Kruychkova (Olympic Prize Winner - Athens 2004) |
With Glasgow hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2014 this is a tremendous opportunity for the Glasgow gymnasts to raise their standards of performance and be strong contenders for selection.
This exciting project builds on the many other successful partnerships with this remarkable Twin City of Glasgow including links between St Timothy’s Primary School and Rostov ABC Primary School and Glasgow City Council’s Addiction Services and Rostov Diagnostic and Consulting Centre.
A number of key partners are supporting the Glasgow School of Sport with this exchange including the Lord Provost International Office, Education and Social Work Services International Education, Culture and Sport Glasgow (Sport and Events) and the City of Glasgow Gymnastics Club.
Gilmour Sports provided exchange sports kit for the gymnasts and coaches. Vision (the School of Sport kit suppliers) donated T Shirts for the Russian delegation.
All gymnasts and coaches are busy fund raising for their trip later in the year. If you are interested in making a donation or supporting this project in any way please contact Angela Porter.
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Russian Gymnasts |
This is a unique opportunity to be part of a partnership with the Glasgow School of Sport Scotland’s National Sports School and the Olympic Reserve School in Russia and to support young talented gymnasts from Scotland on their pathway to sporting excellence.
This project aims to raise standards of performance and turn dreams of becoming Commonwealth and Olympic contenders into reality.
If you would like further information on this project please contact Angela Porter - Director Glasgow School of Sport on either 0141 582 0034 or email angela.porter@csglasgow.org
| Russian - Gymnasts | Glasgow - Gymnasts |
| Yulia Belokobylskaya | Danna Sim - GSOS |
| Ruzana Nabokova | Karen Heaney - GSOS |
| Alina Nagorkina | Megan Glass - City of Glasgow |
| Anastasia Sidorova | Orla Gallacher - City of Glasgow |
| Maria Dergacheva | Cara Kennedy - City of Glasgow |
| Anastasia Lavrinenko | Amy Regan - City of Glasgow |
| Carly Smith - City of Glasgow | |
| Coaches | Coaches |
| Vladimir Fudimov - Head of School | Philippa Musikant - GSOS |
| Liya Fudimova | Sandra Walsh - City of Glasgow |
| Olga Sagina | Lynne Donaghy - Former Pupil GSOS and City of Glasgow |
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Cream of Malawi's Young Athletes Enrol at the School - April 2008
Six of Malawi’s hottest young athletes spent a fortnight at the city’s trailblazing School of Sport at Bellahouston Academy.
The visit was the latest in a series of links between the school and the African country, aimed at strengthening the bond between Glasgow and the Lilongwe area of Malawi as well as helping promising young Malawian athletes to reach their full potential.
A full account of the visit from the Malawian students' perspective is available on a specially created page entitled International Links - Malawian Visit April 2008 and includes a diary, timetable and an athlete's point of view on the scholarship.
Last summer the Lord Provost Office shipped out another container of essential medical and building supplies to Malawi. The Glasgow School of Sport managed to squeeze in much needed athletics equipment to kick start an athletics scholarship programme in the Lilongwe region of the country. This equipment was distributed to schools, with resources for teachers to encourage pupils to get involved in athletics and to prepare them for athletics competitions later in the year.
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Two Malawian exchange students |
Malawian exchange group at the School |
Following a series of competitions six pupils were selected to come on a two-week athletics scholarship in April 2008 to the Glasgow School of Sport. Three boys (Noel Lipenga, Lameck Nylrenda and Edward Chunga) and three girls (Mwayi Phalazi, Marium Salimu and Lennie Sindani) all impressed the selectors!
The six, all aged 14, were accompanied by their teachers Susan Mhango and Joel Kumwenda. They participated in school lessons at Bellahouston Academy as well as all Glasgow School of Sport athletics training sessions. You can listen to their views by visiting our podcast page.
Bailie Gordon Matheson, the Council's Executive Member for Education Services and Social Renewal, said: “This is a wonderful partnership between Glasgow School of Sport and schools in the Lilongwe area, all of whom are devoting themselves to developing the sporting champions of tomorrow.
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Maureen McKenna - Service Director Education with students Marium and Mwayi |
Teachers Joel and Susan with School coaches Frank and Norrie |
“I am delighted that the young people from Africa visited our flagship School of Sport. It was a great opportunity for them to see first hand Scotland’s foremost centre of sporting excellence for young people. However, I’m sure the Glasgow pupils who were lucky enough to be involved in the visit - whether as hosts, training partners or temporary classmates - would have got as much out of the experience as the Malawians.
“And who knows - this might not be the last time the young people meet. What more motivation will they all need to persevere at their chosen sports than the possibility of competing for Scotland or Malawi at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014?”
For most of their stay, the group stayed in a flat at the Youth Hostel at Park Circus. However, for three nights the Malawians experienced home life by staying with families of Glasgow School of Sport pupils. A social and cultural programme was also organised to show off Glasgow and the local way of life. All the pupils kept a diary of their visit and an extract from Noel’s diary is shown below to give you a taste of their experience.
Bellahouston Academy head teacher Ian Anderson said: “This is a fantastic project for us to be involved with. I am extremely proud of achievements of everyone involved with the Glasgow School of Sport, and am very excited by the outward-looking, international approach being adopted by all those associated with it”.
“This partnership is fully in tune with the best traditions of both Glasgow and Scotland and, once again, testifies to Glasgow School of Sport's status as the country's original and best model of school-based sporting excellence.”
The project received a funding award from the Scottish Government International Development Fund and is coordinated in Malawi by the British Council.
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Angela Porter addressing the Civic Reception |
School of Sport Director Angela Porter who set up this partnership is delighted by its success.
"When I visited Malawi I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and passion for sport that the pupils exuded despite a lack of proper equipment and resources,” she said. “Meeting with pupils and their teachers and listening to what they needed, allowed a project to be created which would let them do things for themselves - long after we'd gone! We've all learned from this, and we're all winners before the games have even started."
A short mp3 audio file containing an interview with Angela Porter on this project has been provided.
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2007 Forward
Internationally the School of Sport continues to strengthen links and welcomed forty pupils from Como Secondary College in Australia in 2007. Three senior pupils: Lauren Grant, Amy Gibson and Kristine Ayling were selected from the Glasgow School of Sport to travel to Australia for a hockey exchange later that year.
Malawian schools will also benefit from resource bags and athletics equipment that the Glasgow School of Sport have sent out to boost athletics programmes in schools. The Glasgow School of Sport has organised athletics competitions in fifty Lilongwe schools, the winners of which will come together to compete for 15 fully equipped athletics bags and the opportunity to win four athletics scholarships to the Glasgow School of Sport.
The Glasgow School of Sport is grateful to the Scottish Executive International Development Fund for their financial support with this project and to the Lord Provost's office for shipping athletics equipment to Malawi.
Athletics pupils are pictured below with Director Angela Porter and Athletics Coach Norrie Hay packing the resource and equipment bags. A summary of this exciting project is available for download in portable document format (PDF) - Malawi Project Summary (343k).
The approximate file download size is included at the end of the Application Form hyperlink. You will require Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the document. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Website.
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The Glasgow School of Sport has a number of International Projects and links which include opportunities for School of Sport pupils to experience training camps in Europe, Exchange programmes in Australia and for talented athletes from other countries to visit Glasgow and join in our programmes. The School of Sport also participated in a European project established to explore partnerships between Education and Sport.
International Links Report (3.22Mb)
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Competition Success in Malawi - October 2007
Glasgow School of Sport High Performance Athletics Coach Norrie Hay, accompanied by senior athletics pupil Calum Nicholl, travelled to Malawi to organise an athletics competition for Malawian schoolchildren (between the ages of 11-14) to identify a small group to travel to Glasgow on a Sports Scholarship.
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Team from Ngowe School in Lilongwe |
Students preparing for the shot putt competition |
The first phase of the competition saw over 50 schools supplied with basic athletics equipment by the Glasgow School of Sport to run their own preliminary competition with results fed back to Scotland for collation. Those results produced a list of the top 15 schools and those students were invited to attend the three competition days staged by Glasgow School of Sport in Malawi. The competition days were staged across two different venues, Lilongwe in Central Malawi and Mzuzu in the Northern region.
All 15 schools attended with 90 students taking part in this second stage of the competition. All competitors completed three compulsory events, Standing Shot Putt, Standing Long Jump and Shuttle run. At the end of these events 12 students on each day progressed to a further two running events, 100 metres & 800 metres, before the best 3 boys and best 3 girls were selected to progress to final selection.
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Scholarship Final trialists in Mzuzu completing endurance tests |
Norrie Hay awards an equipment bag to a winning school in Lilongwe |
Each of the 15 schools who qualified for the Glasgow School of Sport competitions were awarded with an athletics kit bag that contained a full range of athletics equipment that could be used by the entire school and received coach education in their use.
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Student athletes |
Six students and two teachers were selected for the athletics scholarship.
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Olympic Reserve School Exchange
Rostov-on-Don in Russia is one of Glasgow’s Twin Cities and there are many successful partnerships between the two cities, none of them however focus on sport.
Angela Porter, Director of Glasgow School of Sport visited Rostov to identify a specialist gymnastics school that would partner the gymnastics programme at the School of Sport.
What a visit it turned out to be! Remember Olga Korbut, four times Olympic Gold Medalist and Nellie Kim, 5 times Olympic Champion? Well, they are graduates of the sports school system in Russia. What about Svetlana Grozdova, Elena Produnova, Alexander Safoshkin and Maria Kryuchkova? Apart from being world ranked gymnasts, these Olympic, World and European champions all attend the Olympic Reserve School.
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Elena Produnova |
Maria Kryuchkova |
This school has over 1000 gymnasts and many of their top gymnasts live and train on site at the school. Its focus is to produce gymnasts who will compete and win at the Olympic Games.
Vladimir Fudimova, Head of this specialist gymnastics school has agreed to work with the Glasgow School of Sport and discussions are underway to welcome gymnasts from the Olympic Reserve School to Glasgow early in 2008 and for gymnasts from the School of Sport to visit Rostov-on-Don. A full report on this visit and our plans for the future are contained within the newsletter under international links.
A copy of the full report is available for download. The approximate file download size is included at the end of the report hyperlink. The document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). You will require Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the document. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Website.
Rostov-on-Don Report (7.9Mb)
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Training Camps
The badminton programme has provided opportunities for pupils to attend over twelve training camps throughout Europe.
These have included:
• Week long non-residential camps, with domestic and foreign coaches;
• Weekend residential camp in England;
• European Badminton Union Summer Schools in Denmark;
• Svendborg Training Camp and competition in Denmark;
• Annual warm weather training camps in Club La Santa, Lanzarote (pictured).
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International Exchange Como Secondary College in Perth, Australia
This exchange provides pupils with the opportunity to:
- Train, compete and learn from one of the leading hockey nation in the world;
- Continue to combine high performance sport with academic study while abroad;
- Learn from different coaching styles and techniques;
- Raise their standard of play, develop new skills, knowledge and experience from participation in the school programme and through wider links with clubs and the elite programmes available through the Western Australia institute of Sport;
- Travel and live abroad.
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The Director of the Glasgow School of Sport represented Glasgow and Scotland on the European Athlete as Student (EAS) project, one of the projects of the European Year of Education through Sport 2004 supported by the European Commission.
The main aim of this project was to develop a network between those who work with combining education and sport, to achieve permanent forms of co-operation between different countries in the field of sport and study, to increase co-operation between sport associations and educational establishments, as well as to exchange information and experiences about different arrangements and individual solutions aimed at combining education and sport.
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Scholarship Opportunity for Malawi Youngsters
Glasgow has developed links with Malawi in a number of areas such as health and education. The difficulties the country is facing in terms of HIV/AIDS, famine and poverty are widely publicised and Glasgow’s Lord Provost is taking a lead role in raising much-needed funds. This includes the construction of maternity clinic in Lilongwe and the organization of donations and gifts, such as computers, books and toys for distribution to orphanages, schools and community organisations.
One of the School of Sport's most recent International developments, supported by the Scottish Government International Development Fund is the provision of starter athletics resource kits for approximately sixty schools in Lilongwe, Malawi and the opportunity for up to six students from these schools to win a two-week athletics scholarship to the Glasgow School of Sport.
Earlier in 2005, it was decided to explore the possibility of establishing sporting links between the Glasgow School of Sport and a school in Malawi. As a result, two employees of Glasgow City Council visited Malawi in October 2005 with a view to offering sports scholarships to four young Malawians. The personnel were Angela Porter, Director of Glasgow School of Sport, based in Bellahouston Academy, and John Keatings, Depute Headteacher of Bellahouston Academy.
A copy of the report is available for download. The approximate file download size is included at the end of the report hyperlink. The document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). You will require Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the document. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Website.
Malawi Report (15Mb)
