Sports club that helps young athletes flourish is up for award

A SPORTS club that gives children with learning difficulties the chance build in confidence while competing across the country has been nominated for a Yorkshire Children of Courage Award (YCCA).
Able2 Pontefract Special Olympics have been nominated for the Yorkshire Children of Courage Awards group award 2014.
Thomas Radding in the pool.Able2 Pontefract Special Olympics have been nominated for the Yorkshire Children of Courage Awards group award 2014.
Thomas Radding in the pool.
Able2 Pontefract Special Olympics have been nominated for the Yorkshire Children of Courage Awards group award 2014. Thomas Radding in the pool.

Able2 Pontefract Special Olympics set up in 2009 to offer sporting opportunities for people with learning difficulties, and is in the running for the Group Award at the YCCAs, which will be held in Leeds in October.

The club, which meets at Pontefract Swimming Pool and Featherstone Sports Centre, currently has 12 members, all with learning difficulties.

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Terry Raddings, Able2’s vice chair and swimming coach, said: “We firmly believe that everybody is good at something.

“The opportunity to participate in different sports and compete at a very high level gives them a real confidence and sense of achievement.”

His son Thomas, 16, who has Down’s Syndrome, is a successful swimmer in the club. He has just returned from the Down’s Syndrome British Championships in Reading.

Members compete across the country in a variety of sports, including athletics, equestrian, new age kurling and boccia, and each year a team heads to the Special Olympics National Games, which last year were held in Bath.

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Last month members took part in the Riding for the Disabled National Championships in Gloucestershire and in June, Able2 competitors took part in a number of different disciplines, including sprinting, turbo javelin and standing long jump at the Mencap Open National Athletics Championship in Manchester.

On Saturday the club will be at the Lions Sports Fun Day at Sandall Park, Doncaster.

Like the other two nominees in this year’s group award, Prism Deaf Youth Club and Jessie’s Fund, Able2 received a grant from the St James’s Place Foundation, organisers of YCCA.

The grant will be used to develop dedicated Saturday morning training sessions in boccia at Featherstone sports centre.

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Mr Raddings saud: “To be recognised for the work we do is amazing. We’re all volunteers, we don’t do it for the accolades, but to see how our athletes flourish in the sports they do.”

For the first time, members of the public can vote for their winner from the shortlist.

The Yorkshire Post is the media partner for the awards, which were set up to honour courageous youngsters while raising money to help disadvantaged and disabled young people. Nominations and voting can be made at www.yorkshirechildren.co.uk

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