About

Passing the Flame

There is very little reference in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as to what the world class venue, now known as the London Stadium, and other stadia were built for.

Young people refer to it as the West Ham United stadium and the legacy of two previous Olympic and Paralympic Games in London is being less recognised every day.

Attendance at the recent British World Athletics held in the London Stadium in July 2019 was relatively low and the connection between the inspiration of Olympic and Paralympic sports, that hold so many strong values for us is being lost.

With funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund we are running an intergenerational and educational project bringing the community together to learn about the importance of preserving heritage in relation to the Olympic and Paralympic achievements in the UK.

Participants in this project will learn about archiving, by visiting the British Olympic Association’s (BOA) artefacts, held by the University of East London (UEL), that captures over 100 years history of British Athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games such as London: 1908, 1948 and 2012.

Through workshops in oral history and the digitisation of artefacts, participants will carry out their own local investigations capturing first and second hand stories and memorabilia of the local athletes who represented Great Britain at world sporting events and other professionals working with them such as coaches, kit designers, dieticians and physiotherapists.

We will access these with the help of local athletic clubs, sports venues, UEL Sports Dock and Loughborough University in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

This project aims to extend and bring to life the BOA archives at UEL with a local focus shared through intergenerational lectures, a touring exhibition, an educational on-line resource of digitised artefacts, oral histories and examples of educational activities to preserve heritage and widen the access to them.

London Stadium Learning

London Stadium Learning is an education provision at the London Stadium in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. Website: www.londonstadiumlearning.uk

We deliver activities for children, young people and the wider community to help develop skills that enable achievement in education, the workplace and beyond.

Based in an inspiring world class sporting venue, the Olympic and Paralympic London 2012 Stadium, our projects use high quality multimedia facilities and run within the themes of Sports Journalism, Heritage and Leadership.