By Annabelle Tukia
Plans for a $3.5 million centre for the country's top athletes have been unveiled in Christchurch.
The original hub at QE II park was destroyed in the earthquakes, forcing many of the regions top sportspeople to go elsewhere.
Not much remains of the high performance sports centre at QE II.
The quakes destroyed the specialist facility forcing many of the region's top athletes to relocate.
High Performance Sports New Zealand chief executive Alex Baumann hopes they won’t be away too long.
“Hopefully they will be back as we build this. We had approximately a hundred athletes training at QE II and we hope a hundred athletes will be training here in the future too.”
The centre, which is going up next door to the Jellie Park pools, will include a gymnasium, an indoor running straight and netball court and medical and admin facilities.
Paralympic gold medallist Sophie Pascoe is one athlete who stayed in Christchurch after the quakes She says she and everyone else who stayed have desperately missed what QE II offered.
“The luxury of just being able to walk up stairs and we have our high performance facility there and we have our support staff there on tap for us, the culture of having all the high performance athletes together and training together,” Pascoe says.
And Pascoe's coach Roly Crichton couldn't agree more.
“It is exciting because we really have missed it,” he says. “Its really neat, I look out the window everyday - watch every peg going in and a wee smile on my face as it’s happening because that’s a portion of the rebuild of Christchurch.
The rebuild is expected to be completed and open for use by March next year.
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