ONE of the country’s most successful athletes urged students to stick in at school in order to avoid his biggest regret.
Gold medal winning gymnast Craig Heap told students at Risedale Sports and Community College that he left school with no qualifications.
“It’s the biggest regret of my life,” he said. “Like it or loathe it you have to come to school so make the most of the opportunity.”
Craig said his fortunes changed the day television screened a competition in which he came fourth.
“People saw me on the tele and suddenly I was cool,” he said. “It made a massive difference. I might have left school with no qualifications but at least I had confidence in myself.”
His gymnastics career spanned 20 years during which time he won 14 British championship titles, competed in five European and five world championships.
In 1998 he became the first person in history to captain England to team gold at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Four years later in the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games, he captained England again to gold.
Since retiring from gymnastics in 2002, Craig set up his own company that aims to help people reach their goals and dreams and achieve their own personal best.
Still involved with gymnastics, Craig is a qualified high performance men’s gymnastics coach.
He has appeared as a mystery guest on the BBC’s They Think It’s All Over, performed back flips for Kylie Minogue and most recently has commentated on gymnastics for Five Live and for the BBC covering the world championships, the Commonwealth and Olympic Games.
Craig's biggest breakthrough in television is being a judge on BBC 1’s Saturday night gymnastics entertainment show Tumble.
In an hour-long workshop Craig spoke to Year 7 and Year10 students to motivate, inspire and educate them about the importance of setting goals to become successful and achieve the things they want.
Using the Steps-to-Success website, they will create their own secure password and start setting goals in three key areas of their lives: education, sport and performing arts and their personal life.
The Steps-to-Success programme was initially started with funding from Stephen Hagues, owner of Retiring IFI, Ripon, as a free school initiative to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.
