An Olympic legend welcomed local people through the doors of The Centre in Slough when Colin Jackson paid a visit on Saturday to the free family open day.

Colin spent time meeting the local community before taking part in a number of games on the sports hall’s unique LED floor. The former world champion also began his journey to gain confidence in the water by taking part in his first swimming lesson with Everyone Active’s contract swimming manager.

Everyone Active now runs The Centre after going into partnership with Slough Borough Council

“It was a fantastic day at The Centre,” Jackson said. “I’ve been so impressed with the facilities and the activities available for the local community.

“I loved being back in Slough, after visiting Langley last year, and I hope everyone that came down enjoyed the facilities and found a new activity they enjoyed doing.”

In the lead up to the official opening of The Centre, Everyone Active ran a competition for a local child to design a swimming hat which was won by Siyona Bhandari (10). Proceeds from the sales of Siyona’s swimming hats will go to Macmillan Cancer Support.

The local community enjoyed free access to the new 115-station gym on the open day, group exercise classes in the new studios and inflatable and pool disco in the two new pools.

Everyone Active also hosted a Zoggs ‘Oceans of Fun’ event which saw over 100 children enjoy a range of water-based activities including water polo, swimming and synchronised swimming.

The event was led by London 2012 water polo captain Craig Figes and Olympic synchronised swimmer Katie Clark (London 2012 and Rio 2016) as they took the children through the activities before racing against the children.

Sally Thomas-Ellis, Everyone Active regional contract manager, said: “It was great to see so many people visit The Centre for our open day. I hope they all enjoyed the fantastic facilities we have on offer.

“I want to thank Colin Jackson for joining us and getting involved in so many activities on Saturday. I also want to thank the team at Oceans of Fun for delivering a great event which saw so many children enjoying being in the pool.”