Students reduce stress with international sport star

Charlotte Hartley with foundation learning students before their pilates class

Charlotte Hartley’s visit was aimed at inspiring students through a project called Sportivate Innovation, one of the key initiatives to create a sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Sportivate is a Lottery funded project aimed at 11 to 25-year-olds who weren’t doing sport in their own time.

Charlotte was one of the youngest players to be selected to represent England for the 2006 Commonwealth Games helping the team to a Bronze medal. In 2007 she joined up with the GB Youth team to take part in the Junior Olympics, achieving a Gold medal. Charlotte then had a spell in Canada coaching hockey before moving to New Zealand to play professionally and then moving on to Barcelona.

 As part of her role as a Sport England Sporting Champion, Charlotte supported a special student pilates session, which was run thanks to Lancashire Sport, who provide Sportivate funding in the area on behalf of Sport England.

Charlotte said: “It was great to support the Sportivate Innovation pilates session at Myerscough College and share the benefits of using exercise to combat stress and anxiety, and to encourage the young people and share my experience of proudly competing at elite level.

‘’Sportivate is a fantastic way of getting young people into sport and that is something I am really passionate about. I believe that as a Sport England Sporting Champion, I can inspire everyone in attendance to raise their aspirations of what they can achieve and motivate them to be the very best versions of themselves that they can be.”

Jayne Molyneux, the Strategic Lead for Youth at Sport England, said: “It is great to see Charlotte helping to inspire young people taking part in Sportivate to carry on participating in a sport they may never have tried before.

“Our Sportivate programme is all about listening to young people and putting on taster sessions in a sport of their choice to help them make the step into community sport and set them on the path to creating a sporting habit for life.”