A Bradford rowing club is encouraging youngsters to follow in the wake of one of its former stars, who is competing in the Olympic Games.

Debbie Flood, 24, who learned the sport with the Bradford Amateur Rowing Club, is competing in Athens as a member of the British Quad Scull.

Now the Saltaire-based club is encouraging other children to take up rowing as it tries to break down the stigma that rowing is only for the elite.

Club president Hugh Scott said: "We have just succeeded in a bid to appoint a part-time community sports coach. He will be going into schools and creating partnerships between the schools and the club.

"We are hoping that the coach will work with four schools through the year, introducing indoor rowing into schools and encouraging children who have enjoyed that indoor rowing to get out on to the water."

The club already works closely with Salt Grammar, Bradford Grammar and Woodhouse Grove schools and has run summer holiday taster schemes for 11-year-olds in Girlington and Manningham.

It is also extending its women's changing rooms to accommodate new members who are becoming attracted to the sport. The club was founded in 1867 and is the only open membership club in West Yorkshire - all the other clubs are private. There are 120 members of the club, of which a third are juniors.

Mr Scott said that attracting new people to rowing, particularly youngsters, was part of the club's development programme which recently attracted £155,000 of funding to improve facilities.

A large proportion of that money has been used for vital repair works on a weir in the River Aire, including replacing the masonry and embedding large boulders into the riverbed in order to provide stability.

Without the work, which was completed last week, the club could have been left without a level stretch of water on which to train and would have been forced to close.

Mr Scott added: "Because the River Aire is a Pennine river, it drops quite rapidly. Without the weir there wouldn't be a stretch of water that we could row on at all in the Bradford district."

The contractors have left space for a fish pass to be installed, as part of the Environment Agency's continual efforts to attract migrating sea fish back to the River Aire.