City News

SportsFest, the city’s free sporting extravaganza, will be staged in Birmingham city centre for the third consecutive year and the 2006 event is set to be bigger and better than ever before.

This year’s free family festival of sport will be staged at Millennium Point on Saturday 15th July from 10am until 4pm. The event, which is aimed at young people aged eight to fourteen is organised by Birmingham City Council’s sports events and sport development teams , with the support of a variety of national governing bodies.

Councillor John Alden, Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture said: “The main aim of SportsFest is to encourage young people in Birmingham to be more active. This event is a great opportunity for children to have a chance to try a huge number of free activities all related to different sports.

“Since Britain won the right to host the 2012 Olympics, the nation’s health and sporting ability has really been under the spotlight and we hope that this year’s SportsFest will capitalise on the country’s rejuvenated interest in sport.”

SportsFest has been extremely successful over the last two years with thousands of youngsters using the event as an opportunity to have a go at sports which they perhaps haven’t had the opportunity to try before. This year will be no different as once again there will be a huge selection of free sports related activities for children to tackle and every session will be run by expert coaches.

Sports that are likely to feature include football, athletics, tennis, cricket and rugby and there will also be activities for children with disabilities. SportsFest also provides an opportunity for families to find out more about their local city council leisure facilities and to receive advice about ways in which every member of the family can improve their health and fitness just by making a few simple lifestyle changes. For more information about SportsFest, which is supported by the Birmingham Mail and BBC WM, call 0121 202 5066 or log onto www.birmingham.gov.uk.

This year’s SportsFest will coincide with the Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile, which is organised by Comic Relief in association with BBC Sport. In Birmingham there are four different mile races for people to enter and these will start at 11am, 11.30am, 12pm and 12.30pm.

Each race will start and finish at Millennium Point. Thousands of people, including celebrities such as Sir Steve Redgrave, Phil Taylor and Jane Sixsmith, are expected to take part in order to raise much needed cash to help vulnerable people leading tough lives both here in the UK and abroad.

If you want to take part in the Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile then you need to register in advance. For information about how to do this log onto www.sportrelief.com or call 0845 605 8000.