Sitting to her left, in dark t-shirts, are a group of active and retired competitors who have proven themselves to be world class, including rowing's double world champion and Olympic bronze medallist Sarah Winckless, former world under-23 rowing champion Bill Lucas, Olympic sailing gold medallist Pippa Wilson, six-times kayaking world champion Anna Hemmings, and former European and Commonwealth swimming champion Adam Whitehead (pictured).

"Today is going to be a brilliant day," says the former Army PE instructor. "You will not get another opportunity like this to be learning from these guys, so make the most of it."

The assembled young talents are then given an upbeat address by the Minister for Sport and Olympics, Hugh Robertson, whose parental home is only a few hundred yards away.

"You are growing up in the most exciting time we have ever had in British sport," he tells them before offering up a list of impending sporting events which Britain is hosting: the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, the 2014 Commonwealth Games, the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup and, oh yes, the 2012 Olympic Games.

"And we will most certainly bid for the 2017 World Athletics Championships," he adds.

Robertson goes on to say how Seb Coe had once told him it took four things to make an Olympic champion. Funding, medical support - including aspects such as nutrition and injury prevention - and good coaching were the first three of these elements.

The last, as Coe described it, was as simple or complex as you wish it to be: "You have to have what it takes."

Holmes has made the same point in her welcoming address to those who have gathered in Canterbury for what is the fifth such event to have been set up in different parts of the country by the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust.

She wheels around to engage as many of the young faces pointing up at her as possible. "When it comes to performing at the highest level, this," she says, tapping her head, "is what makes the difference..."

Squash Court 1 is pockmarked with a thousand smudged marks of past sporting endeavours. And it is very cold. In it sits a batch of young sporting performers who are to be conducted through a lifestyle and mentoring workshop by one of the team leaders, Adam Whitehead.

Four subdivided groups are invited to write their thoughts on large pieces of paper – the twin topics being the issues that bear upon their performance and future performance in their chosen sports, and the main motivations that drive them.

In essence, this session – and each of its three parallels in squash courts 2, 3 and 4 – is aimed at fundamentally organising attitudes.

Whitehead, a 30-year-old from Coventry, has an engaging manner which is made even more effective by his disarming admission that he is dyslexic.

For a group of slightly edgy and apprehensive teenagers, such a confession has a clearly relaxing effect. But the session proceeds with increasing confidence all round as Whitehead probes at some of the initial written contributions.

On the 'motivation' sheet of paper, one team member has boldly inscribed the word "winning".

Asked about it, the team member, a young track and field athlete, explains, a little defensively: "I don't enter something to come second."

The point is taken by Whitehead, but he asks: "How about those races you have won and those races you have lost? Which has taught you more?"

"You learn through your mistakes," is the response.

"So if it makes you a better athlete the next time you race, maybe that's more important to you," Whitehead suggests, before realising that the young runner is looking just a little crestfallen at this point.

"I'm not saying you're not right," he adds. "If you were to ask Kelly the same question, she might well come up with the same answer. By the time she got to her last Olympics she had already won a bronze but most people thought she was probably too old to win. Then she got two gold medals..."

It is clear that there is no set agenda here – only a desire for those youngsters present to discover something genuinely useful or illuminating in the course of their day at the event, which was sponsored by P&O Ferries.

"When I trained I really prided myself on being the toughest trainer in the group," Whitehead says. "I would swim more lengths than anyone else, and the recognition I got from that was a big motivation for me.

"Athletes are probably not the healthiest of people. At the top level it's all about living on that knife edge, training as hard as you can without making yourself injured or ill. That is our job, and you will have to manage that.

"We want each of you to leave here today with something, even if it's only one thing, which will help you in your future careers.

"One of the biggest things I learned in my career was how important it was to rest properly before and after exercise. If you are working hard, as I was, you need 8-9 hours sleep. If you don't get that, your body doesn't recover properly and that's when you get prone to illness and injuries."


And so the modified lists are read out in order of importance. On the subject of motivation, the first group settle on: goals, success, winning, money, inspiration. The second group: improvement, enjoyment, competition, staying healthy, family encouragement.

On the subject of issues, the first group's top five is: money, overcoming low self efficiency (low confidence in certain situations), injury and stress, ability, balancing sport with school. And the second group conclude: cost, injuries, school, travel, expectations.

Set approaches are questioned, re-assessed – and in some cases, confirmed. The tone of honest evaluation is established for the day, and Dame Kelly awaits all with her fiendish circuit training in the main hall.

Robertson, dressed in smart casuals on his local patch, is brimming with enthusiasm for the venture.

"As a Kent MP and someone born in Kent, I am incredibly proud of what Kent has achieved in terms of supporting sport, and that's part of the reason I'm here today.

"But actually this is a template , and you can roll it out across other parts of the country. You get a prominent Olympian, that acts as a magnet, and then you build them a series of other top sporting figures who come from the county or come in from somewhere else.

"Then involve medical support and sports nutritionists and specialist coaches - ideally you base it at a university or a sports college so you have the technical know-how behind it - and then you draw into that all the promising young athletes around the county, and that enables the established athletes to pass on all those invaluable tips."

It certainly is a template. But there is only one Kelly Holmes...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames