Olympic great Sir Steve puts pupils through their paces

So who better to cast their eye over the on-pitch efforts of youngsters from schools in Leeds?

Sir Steve was in the city yesterday as part of his work for an initiative called Sporting Promise.

He visited St Theresa’s Catholic Primary School in Cross Gates, where its pupils were put through their paces at an athletics session.

Also on hand at St Theresa’s were children from Corpus Christi Catholic College, in Halton Moor.

The Corpus Christi pupils showed Sir Steve how they are getting to grips with more unusual sports such as lacrosse and tchoukball.

Asked if he had brought any of his collection of Olympic golds with him, he said: “No, but I have been presented with a medal that a student designed for me, which was great. There are certainly a lot of enthusiastic kids here and plenty of great teachers.”

Sporting Promise is delivered by retailers Sporting Pro and Matalan as well as the Youth Sport Trust.

It aims to provide primary school staff with the skills they need to teach sport in a fun and engaging way.

The scheme also helps make alternative sports available in secondary schools for children who might have found more mainstream games such as football and cricket are not for them. Sir Steve was joined at St Theresa’s by former Great Britain rugby league star Paul Broadbent.