01 May 2008 - 31 Dec 2008
What's on - Team Mall 2008
As part of our ongoing commitment to encouraging excellence, the Mall is delighted to be sponsoring eight established and aspiring athletes from across Great Britain.
We hope that by engaging with our local communities through the launch of Team Mall 2008 we will encourage you to get behind your athlete and pledge your support, spurring the Team on in their mission to compete for a gold medal in Beijing next year.
Each athlete will be representing a local Mall, and our website will regularly post information to keep you informed and updated on their results as well as their status on training for the big day.
The Mall Bexleyheath is sponsoring Darius Knight for table tennis and Gemma Gibbons for judo.
DARIUS KNIGHT:
Table tennis was first introduced to the young Darius Knight by his mother as a ruse to keep him off the streets and out of trouble. The coach at his local club in Battersea soon discovered that he had a natural ability and Darius swept the board at the 2001 Greater London Championship, winning the under-12, under-14 and under-17 competitions, only to be beaten in the final of the under-21s.
Darius won the competition for his age group at the Luxembourg Open, has beaten some of the best juniors in China, and is already ranked in the top 50 for senior men.
The speed at which Darius has developed has made him the talk of the sport, across Europe and beyond. Even Matthew Syed, British No. 1 since 1995, marvels at his technical brilliance, "Darius is improving at an incredible rate," says Matthew. "I don't want to put pressure on him, but it seems to me he has almost limitless potential."
GEMMA GIBBONS:
Judo Star Gemma Gibbons, who recently competed in the British University Championships where she took gold, is now hoping to go for gold at the London Olympics in 2012.
First introduced to the sport at the Metro Judo Club, Blackheath, aged six, Gemma has gone on to compete at the highest level in her age group.
She clinched fifth place at the Junior Europeans in Croatia, and is one of around 100 young sportspeople to benefit from the government's 2012 Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS), which aims to help the medalists of the future to fulfill their potential.
Please click here for more information or pick up a leaflet from our Ask Me Point.
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