Teesside High School has welcomed a world champion and Olympian, when Richard Kilty visited to share his expertise in a special assembly and workshop.
The World Indoor sprint champion visited the school to talk about how his love of sport at school developed into a successful career. He also put a number of students through their paces in a practical sprint session.
The British track and field sprinter – from Stockton – presented a senior school assembly as part of Teesside High’s theme of the week, ‘Competition’.
Richard talked to students about his career highlights, including World Indoor Gold (60m), European Championship Gold (4x100m relay), European Indoor Championship Gold (2015 – 60m, 2017 – 60m) and Commonwealth Games Gold (60m). In addition, he spoke about his rise through school, from PE lessons in primary school to the English Schools Championship, where he was the fastest schoolboy in the country over 100m for two years during Year 11 and Year 12.
Kirsty Mackenzie, Head at Teesside High School, said: “It was an honour to welcome Olympic athlete and World Indoor Sprint Champion Richard Kilty.
“Richard had a lot of important life lessons to share with our students. Of course, he spoke of the inspirational highs of working as a professional athlete, but he also discussed his careers lows, including race defeats and sponsorship struggles. Richard reinforced that defeat shouldn’t be seen as a loss, but a lesson- describing his pursuit of success as ‘relentless’.
“His motivational words about building resilience and always having your end goal in mind really resonated with our students and the visit will stay with them for a long time, I am sure.
“We are grateful to Enjoy Tees Valley for organising this special event.”