Mark Wylie

Mark has been inspiring thousands of children in local sport for 27 years, first as an athletics coach then as a trampoline coach and now in gymnastics. He has developed the sport of trampolining in the isles from scratch and playeca huge part in developing gymnastics in Shetland again from scratch, both sports now boast hundreds of chi,dren currently. During this whole period he has given up annual leave from work to take young children to the mainland for national and international competitions. He has produced two national champions from such a small island. Mark has been instrumental in bringing various Olympic gymnasts to the isles for inspirational visits including World Champion Beth Tweddle. As well as all this Mark runs a very successful pre school gymnastics programme involving almost 200 young kids every week. Mark has been busy with charity work also, leading a team of volunteers to Zambia to work in schools and introduce them to gymnastics. He was also project coordinator of a team of volunteers who raised money to travel and work in various orphanages in Romania. Both these projects involved teenagers who were inspired so much by Mark they wanted to get involved themselves. Mark is currently coaching a very promising young 5 year

old gymnast in his own time voluntarily as he hopes to encourage and inspire her to great things. I believe Mark would be an ideal representative for Shetland and the UK to carry the torch and would be very proud to do so!

Romania.