Gabby Logan and Tim Henman are among the sports personalities who have sent a special good luck video to Aberdeenshire sheltered housing Olympians.
Those who live at Dalvenie Gardens in Banchory have been training hard to take part in the Very Sheltered Housing Olympics today.
They will travel to Dawson Court in Turriff to compete against them and four other groups from Doocot View in Banff, Jarvis Court in Fraserburgh, Pleyfauld House in Inverurie and Abbey Court in Mintlaw.
The Olympics event used to be a regular fixture in the sheltered housing calendar but has not been held in person since before the Covid pandemic.
Everyone involved has been preparing for months for its return – and those at the Raemoir Lane housing have even been given an extra boost of encouragement from some famous faces.
Presenters Clare Balding and Gabby Logan, athletes Steve Cram and Colin Jackson, curler Eve Muirhead and tennis player Tim Henman all wanted to wish the residents the best of luck after hearing about the event.
Good luck messages ahead of Very Sheltered Housing Olympics
Pauline Thom, manager of Dalvenie Gardens, said: “They’ve been training for months for these Olympics.
“They were all watching this year’s games on the TV.
“One of the tenants had a relative visiting and they were going on about how excited they were for the Olympics.
“Turns out she works for the BBC. She spoke to all these people and asked them to send a video message.
“We got an email of all these lovely video messages wishing them all the very best which was really nice.
“We put them all together to show the residents and they were chuffed to bits. It has boosted their confidence.”
The group of staff and residents from Banchory, including six residents and four members of staff, will travel by bus to Turriff for the big tournament on Wednesday.
They will compete across six different activities, including floor curling, hook a duck, balloon tennis and onion shot put.
After the video was shared on social media, the soon-to-be Olympians received even more messages of support for the big day with more than 2,500 people viewing the footage.
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