Grantham-based sports charity Inspire+ ‘blown away’ by reaction to virtual Mini Olympics

A popular annual sports event for schoolchildren across the district was forced to go virtual this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But that did not hold the event back, with organisers reporting more engagement than ever before.

The 13th Inspire+ Mini Olympics would usually take place over three days with 2,500 young people involved.

Instead, videos went live last Tuesday which aimed to simulate the real thing. Children in schools and at home took part in videos of sporting activities from a range of Olympic and Paralympic sports, along with performances and messages from the charity’s ambassadors.

And the Grantham-based sports charity was “blown away” on the day to get 11,000 impressions on its YouTube videos totalling 56 hours watched, more than 7,100 impressions on its Twitter page and an increase in users on its website by 306 per cent.

Inspire+ operations manager Chris Graves said: “We have been blown away with how popular and successful the virtual event has been. We wanted to provide an alternative service seeing as we could not do the real thing, but never thought this amount of people would take part!

“Hopefully for 2021 we can be back to seeing everyone in person and rest assured the 2021 Mini Olympics will go with a bang.”

Leader of South Kesteven District Council Kelham Cooke opened the virtual event alongside a group of Inspire+ secondary school volunteers.

Chris added: “The charity would like to thank SKDC, the Rotary Club of Grantham RotarySwimarathon and Nettl of Newark and Grantham for sponsoring the event, along with everyone who helped in making a video as part of the event.”

View videos at: inspireplus.org.uk