Dame Kelly opens new sports centre

Jun 14 2007 By Tony Collins, Birmingham Mail

DOUBLE Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes will be spearheading the next step in sport research and science by officially opening a new £16.4 million centre.

The gold medal winner will be at the University of Birmingham in Edgbaston today to unveil its new School of Sport and Exercise Sciences.

The new building is the largest purpose-built sport and exercise science centre in the UK, featuring state-of-the art facilities for teaching and research.

Current projects include research tackling psychological barriers to exercise, optimising nutrition and training interventions to improve performance of athletes, and the chemical processes that influence diabetes and obesity.

Head of school, Prof Doug Carroll, said: "Birmingham was the first university to offer a degree in sport and exercise sciences that extended beyond the boundaries of physical education.

"Today, the impact of our research goes well beyond the performance, health and confidence of athletes to benefit the general public.

"We continue to push the boundaries with major research projects looking at obesity and diabetes, sports nutrition and performance in elite athletes."

The official opening will follow a day-long conference focusing on the role that physical inactivity plays in the growing global obesity epidemic.

Prof Asker Jeukendrup, director of the School's human performance laboratory, said: "Obesity has reached epidemic proportions, with more than one billion adults overweight and at least 300 million of them clinically obese."

He added: "Physical inactivity and poor diet will soon take over from smoking to become the number one killer."