Chippenham & District Wheelers is pleased to announce that Youth member and track cyclist Stephanie Higgs has been selected to represent the Southern Region at the UK School Games. Steph, 15, will travel to Newport in September to compete in the Track Cycling which has just been added to the UK School Games programme as a new event this year.

Track Cycling is the cycling discipline at which Britain has become so successful in recent years with many successful elite athletes including Victoria Pendleton and Sir Chris Hoy.

Backed by the Youth Sport Trust and National Lottery, the UK School Games is a multi-sport event for the UK’s elite young athletes of school age.

The programme also includes Athletics, Badminton, Fencing, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Swimming, Table Tennis and Volleyball.

The integrated programme of disability events in Athletics, Swimming and Table Tennis increases the athletes competing in 2009 to over 1500.

The UK School Games are being held as part of the build up to the 2012 Olympics and offers a chance for school aged athletes in 10 different sports to compete for their region/nation in much the same way as the Elite compete for their country at the Olympic Games.

All the competitors will stay in an athletes’ village and the event includes an opening ceremony and a number of out of competition development activities for the competitors, such as the chance to meet and ask questions with current Olympians.

The event will be televised and covered by the National press.

Steph is delighted to have been selected to compete in September “I have been training very hard both on the track and on the road over the last year and its great that all the hard work has paid off.

I am really looking forward to competing at such a fantastic event as the UK School Games”

Andy Cook, Chairman of Chippenham and District Wheelers said “This is a major achievement for Steph who has been a very active participant in the Wheelers Youth programme. All the members of the club are wishing her every success for September.”