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Rio athletes trained at Brunel

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FIVE of Britain’s hottest hopefuls counting down to the Olympics action got on top form by training at Brunel University London.

Sheylayna Oskan-Clarke, Morgan Lake, Nigel Levine, Margaret Adeoye and James Ellington could make sporting history after making the 80-strong GB athletics line-up.

To shape up for Brazil’s sizzling 29 to 32 C winter heat, they packed in intensive training sessions at the university’s state of the art Uxbridge athletics facilities.

Slough’s rising star and former Brunel sports science scholar Sheylayna, 26, competes in one of Britain’s strongest events – the women’s 800m. She trained alongside World Junior High Jump Champion and Reading talent Morgan Lake, 19, also based at Brunel in the lead up to the games. Brunel is also where team GB Hockey captain, Kate Richardson-Walsh, London 2012 medal winner and canoeist, Jon Schofield and Team GB women's sevens fly-half Emily Scott studied sport science.

“It’s a great show of our excellent training facilities and our partnership with UK Athletics that we have so many stars competing at Rio,” said Brunel University’s Sports Partnership and Development Manager Richard Ashe.

“We’re following all of them closely and wish them the best of luck,” Richard added. “Top athletes choose to train here at Brunel because of our fantastic facilities and the support we offer to both our own student athletes and these elite athletes and their coaching teams.”

Sprinters Margaret Adeoye, James Ellington and Nigel Levine also prepped for Rio at Brunel under 90s Olympics legend Linford Christie, one of a handful of big name coaches and athletes training and working at the University. Another is six time Olympic champion, Usain Bolt. Jamaican sprint king Bolt used the same grounds to shape up for London 2012 and was due to train at Brunel in summer 2016 before a hamstring injury caused fears he could miss out on Rio. He is now back on track targeting three more gold medals.