12th Aug 2022
If you’ve been glued to your screens like us, or lucky enough to have visited one of the packed-out competition venues, you’ll know that the last few weeks have provided plenty of thrill and excitement for sports fans.
The biggest Team England medal haul ever, sold-out stadia, breaking BBC streaming records – it’s no question that the 2022 Commonwealth Games was a resounding success. S&C Slatter are delighted to have contributed to the games with the construction of both major competition and training venues.
As recently announced, we were honoured to deliver the complete design and build package for the 2022 Commonwealth Games athletics facilities. Together with our exclusive partners, Beynon Sports, we delivered the new World Athletics Class 1 athletics facility at the redeveloped Alexander Stadium. This included the main stadia athletics track, infield and jumps, home of the official athletics competition. Here we saw magnificent displays from the home nations, such as the England men’s successful defence of their title in the 4x100m relay, Laura Muir’s long awaited gold in the 1500m for Scotland, and Wales’ Olivia Breen winning gold in the T37/T38 100m sprint.
Overall, across the athletics and para-athletics programme, the Alexander Stadium saw 1 World Record and a whopping 30 Commonwealth Games Records broken!
But no athlete can compete without a world-class training facility. As well as the main stadia track and field facility, we constructed an additional warm-up track, with the same world-leading Beynon track surface, adjacent to the stadium (complete with infield) and a further specialist throws area.
You can view the facility just before the handover in our video below:
We’ve had a wealth of success as a nation in both Men’s and Women’s hockey in recent global competition – but in 24 years, the England Hockey Women’s team had lost out to Australia, securing silver in three separate Commonwealth finals. That is until this year’s games, when they triumphed against the team from down under, securing their first hockey gold at the Commonwealth Games. The men’s team didn’t leave empty-handed either, securing a bronze medal in their match against South Africa.
We were proud to have delivered one of the hockey training venues for this year’s games at Wyndley Park Leisure Centre just north of Birmingham. Here, we converted the existing sand-dressed hockey pitch into a water-based hockey field, tested and certified to FIH Global standard – required for international competition – ready to support teams training for their all-important Commonwealth Games matches.
Another successful event at this year’s games – delivering 4x gold medals for Team England – was the triathlon, which took place in the stunning 2,000-acre Sutton Park National Nature Reserve.
Wyndley Leisure centre is located just on the outskirts of the park and was utilised as a training venue for the triathletes competing in the games. In addition to the new hockey facility on-site, we carried out a section repair on the centre’s 400m athletics track, installing a new throws cage area and new perimeter fencing. We then carried out a specialist track clean to complete the works, ensuring that the facility was in top condition, and ready to host some of the world’s best triathletes in training for the main event.
Many of the S&C Slatter team have been involved in these projects for years, from initial concept through to completion, so to witness the sheer scale and success of the games in action has been a joy. We’re proud to have cheered on as athletes from around the world competed on and trained on our facilities for the 2022 Commonwealth Games – and to know that as part of the games’ legacy, many more will have the opportunity to use these world-class facilities, inspiring the next generation of sporting superstars and enthusiasts.
Whether delivering large-scale projects to tight time frames for elite competition, or small refurbishments for community use, we pride ourselves on delivering first-class sports facilities for top performance, maximum use and longevity, with the certifications and success rate to prove it.
With in-house expertise across design, planning, construction and maintenance, get in touch now to discuss your needs. Call 01635 34521 or email info@sandcslatter.com
