A COMMUNITY sports centre in the heart of Leyton will be transformed into a training base for team USA Olympic gold medal hopefuls.

Two years ago Neil Brown, the sports programme manager at the Score Centre in Oliver Road, received a call from a representative of the USA Olympic squad who was scouring London for suitable training venues.

Mr Brown said: “They were looking for somewhere where teams who have a good chance of winning gold can train intensively, as there are restricted hours in the venues provided by the Olympic authorities.”

After inspecting the centre’s five Olympic sized sports halls and state-of-the-art training facilities, the team USA judo, volleyball and boxing teams will make the centre their base from July 11 to August 15.

Mr Brown said: “I am very excited. Over the next few months I will be eating, sleeping and breathing sport.

“Though it will be closed to users, the team did not want to be seen as setting up some kind of Fort Knox and taking the facilities away from the community.

“During their training local schoolchildren will be invited to watch them and they will be hosting question and answer sessions as well as practical training sessions.

“The team has also agreed that they will donate lots of their kit to us, which we will then distribute to local sports clubs and organisations, so athletes from the area will be able to train with Olympic standard kit which may have been used by an Olympic gold medallist.”

The Score group’s chief executive, Neil Taylor, said: “It is a real honour to have the US team training with us, it shows that the Olympics is not a remote event happening elsewhere, but something happening right here in the neighbourhood.”