The Aldershot Army barracks where Kelly Holmes spent much of her career as a sergeant is to be confirmed as the training venue for Team GB in the weeks before the 2012 Olympic Games.

This is a considerable coup for the Ministry of Defence site, which was picked ahead of more established sports centres such as Bath and Loughborough universities.

The BOA is spending in the region of £1m on its pre-Beijing Games camp in Macau this summer, so competition to host the leading nations in the build-up to London 2012 is considerable.

But it is not only the big or established venues that hope to experience the flavour of the Olympics in the weeks leading up to the London Games. Some 750 towns and cities have applied for training-camp status, including Brands Hatch, Kent, which hopes to have cyclists and runners lapping its two motor-sport tracks, the city of Lisburn, in Northern Ireland, which is hoping to host the gymnasts of Russia and China, and the Rowney Warren Woods, near Bedford, which hopes to be home to the world’s best mountain bikers.

Birmingham City Council has already landed the US athletics team.

Source: Times, Guardian

Photo: BOA chief executive, Simon Clegg, who previously served at Aldershot