Beat the Street has got off to a flying start with people travelling 26,000 miles in the first five days of Wolverhampton’s giant walking and cycling game. More than 17,800 people are taking part and have already walked and cycled the equivalent of travelling to London and back over 100 times since the launch of Beat the Street.

The free competition continues until Wednesday 3 May, 2017, and challenges people to see how far they can travel across Wolverhampton in return for points and prizes. Players score points and miles by tapping special sensors called Beat Boxes which can be found on lampposts around the City.

Tapping one of the 191 Beat Boxes at the start of the journey, and others en route or at the end, calculates the distance that the player has travelled. This is recorded against the card and added to the player’s individual total, their team total and the city’s overall score.

Councillor Paul Sweet, the City of Wolverhampton Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Health and Wellbeing, said: “The response to Beat the Street has been incredible with thousands of people visiting libraries, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and our WV Active leisure centres to pick up a card and get involved.

“The game has really caught people’s imagination and it is fantastic to see everyone, young and old, playing along. In doing so, they are not only improving their health and wellbeing but also having great fun at the same time.”

Laura Page from Wolverhampton Art Gallery said: “We have been completely overwhelmed in the past week with people coming in to Wolverhampton Art Gallery to pick up their game cards so they can play Beat the Street. From the conversations we have been having with visitors it is clear that the game has got everyone excited.”

More than 130 schools and teams in Wolverhampton are also competing against each other to see who can journey the furthest and win up to £750 worth of sports and fitness equipment supplied by Decathlon.

In addition to the team prize, participants in Wolverhampton are also playing for a good cause with £1,000 being donated to Compton Hospice if the city travels 196,000 miles – the distance reached during last year’s game.

Beat the Street is being delivered by Intelligent Health on behalf of Sport England, The National Lottery and the City of Wolverhampton Council.

Olympian Chris Bennett and British indoor shot put champions Scott Lincoln and Rachel Wallader headline the British team for the European Throwing Cup to be staged in Gran Canaria across the weekend 11-12 March. Bennett enjoyed one of the best seasons of his hammer throwing career in 2016, reaching the European final in Amsterdam before earning selection for the Olympic Games in Rio last summer.

Walsall College’s SLDD Sport Academy football team are celebrating after receiving silver medals in the first round of FA People’s Disability Cup Competition and qualifying for the regional semi-finals.

The FA People’s Cup is a 5-a-side competition run in partnership with BBC Get Inspired. There are 16 competition categories and first round tournaments take place in over 150 different venues across the country with more than 6,000 teams registered.

The SLDD team reached the semi-finals of the Premiership disability competition at Portway Leisure Centre in Oldbury last weekend without losing a game, but narrowly missing out on a place in the final.

10 teams from across the Black Country took part in the first round.

Their hard work has also been rewarded with a place in the next round, the regional semi-finals, which will take place on Sunday 26th March.

The students are part of the college’s SLDD Sport Academy, which launched in September to provide supported learning students with opportunities to gain accredited qualifications and progression routes to the higher level sport courses at college or employment.

SLDD Sports Co-ordinator and Lecturer at Walsall College, Andy Higgins, said: “The students gave a magnificent performance and have done incredibly well considering they have only been playing together since September.”

One member of the team, Samuel Kayode, has also been scouted by the college’s mainstream football academy to play competitive games for the 1st team.

The SLDD academy is helping him to improve his functional skills and work towards progressing on to a mainstream sports qualification.

Andy added: “This is fantastic news for Samuel and shows how much progress he has made with the Academy.”

Following the overwhelming success of the London schools ticket offer for the World Para Athletics Championships, double Paralympic champion Libby Clegg has today launched the nationwide roll out to give all schoolchildren across the UK the opportunity to attend this summer’s biggest sporting event. More than 1,000 schools from every single London borough applied for over 90,000 tickets during the initial window of the ticket offer.

Barcelona's famed academy is the envy of the footballing world for developing talent, and youngsters can discover just what it takes to be the best by taking part in the Official Barcelona Junior Football Camp at Spain's La Manga Club this summer. Five-time World Footballer of the Year Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas are just three of the players to have used the Spanish champions' illustrious academy on their way to global stardom, and budding stars can follow in their footsteps at the camp, which will be staged at La Manga Club for the fourth year running.