Burnley Leisure is pleased to announce that the host for this year’s Burnley Community Sports Awards is Olympic track and field legend Sally Gunnell OBE.
Gold medal winning hurdler, Sally has long been an inspiration to the younger generation and an advocate for a healthy lifestyle.
This year she’s coming to Burnley to help recognise and celebrate the contributions of local people and communities to sport, physical activity and community development.
Paul Foster, head of development at Burnley Leisure, said: “It is with great pleasure we announce Olympic champion Sally Gunnell as the host for our annual Community Sports Awards ceremony.
“The awards are a real celebration of the quality of sport played in Burnley and we’re excited to have Sally along on the evening as our special guest. She is a great example of how hard work and dedication can spark a career that goes on to achieve amazing success at elite level.”
Sally is one of Britain’s greatest Olympians. She is the only female athlete to have held World, European, Commonwealth and Olympic 400 metre hurdles titles.
To add to that achievement, a year after her Olympic triumph in Barcelona in 1992, she was made an MBE and further made an OBE in 1998.
After hanging up her track spikes for the last time Sally developed a career as a TV presenter. She was part of the BBC Sport team and was a regular fixture on athletics programmes until 2006. She is still a regular on the breakfast news sofas and conducts hundreds of radio interviews each year.
She has also gone on to create her own successful business working with companies getting the best out of their teams through healthy lifestyles.
She continues to support various initiatives promoting health and wellbeing and encourages families to be more active.
Nominations for Burnley Community Sports Awards will be open from Monday 6th February. Nominations can be submitted online at www.burnleyleisure.co.uk/sportsawards .
The awards pay tribute to those who show dedication at a range of levels or those who work tirelessly to support individuals or community clubs, for the love of the sport or their community.
Categories include active workplace, adult volunteer of the year, coach of the year, community club of the year, community project of the year, contribution to women’s participation, lifetime achievement, primary school of the year, secondary school of the year, young achiever of the year and young volunteer of the year.
All shortlisted nominees will be invited to the prestigious awards ceremony at Burnley Mechanics Theatre on 6th July.
For all enquiries, including how to sponsor an award, please contact Michelle Grimes on 01282 425011 or email mgrimes@burnley.gov.uk.
