Bobsled medal hopeful trains in region (From The Northern Echo)

Bobsled medal hopeful trains in region

2:26pm Tuesday 9th February 2010 in

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A WINTER Olympics medal hopeful has been stepping up her preparations for the games at an outdoor training facility in the region.

Before flying to Vancouver, world champion bobsledder Nicola Minichiello had training sessions at the Camp Hill dry training track, in Kirklington, near Bedale, North Yorkshire.

As she stepped up her training, Miss Minichiello, from Sheffield, was visited by BBC Sport broadcaster Clare Balding.

In the run-up to the games, the presenter has travelled the country in search of Britain’s brightest medal hopes.

Miss Minichiello and team mate Gillian Cooke took part in a film with the broadcaster, which was recently screened on the BBC’s One Show.

James Ropner, owner of Camp Hill, said: "It is a great privilege for us to have Nicola and her team use Camp Hill as part of their training regime and we are more than happy to help in any small way we can. "Nicola and Gillian had been training at Camp Hill last year and we hope that we will provide a good luck charm for this year’s Winter Olympics.

"The team have an excellent chance to get a podium finish for Britain and it would be great to be able to say we had had a small part to play in achieving that."

Camp Hill offers one of only three ‘dry run’ push starts in the UK, providing an official dry training track for Olympians.

The Winter Olympics start on Saturday.