Today we reveal the shortlist for Sports Personality of the Year in the Examiner Community Awards which take place on Thursday at the John Smith’s Stadium ... and it’s a very young line-up. On Monday the focus will switch to the three nominees who have made it to the final three in the Services to the Community category.

We are proud sponsors of the Perrys Sports Personality Award and we are delighted to present this award to a talented and worthy winner.

This category fits in perfectly with our continued relationship with Huddersfield Town FC as the main sponsor of the Perrys Fanzone down at Canalside. We also have relationships down at the grass roots with some local sponsorship of a junior Rugby League team and a local cricket team, again showing the support to our local community.

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Gymnast Olivia Procter won a European gold medal ... while competing with a stress fracture in her foot.

The Greenhead College student who lives in Skelmanthorpe had won through to the European Age Group Championships for sports acrobatics which were held in Poland.

Olivia, 18, of Skelmanthorpe, and her partner Evie Hancock from Wakefield Gym Club competed in a very strong women’s pair in the 12-18 group category. They performed an outstanding routine to clinch gold for Team GB and the crown of European champions.

Next year they are moving up an age category to compete in the British championships at Stoke-on-Trent at the end of the year.

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Olivia, who has competed for GB for five years, trains more than 20 hours a week in addition to studying for her A Levels in geography, PE and psychology.

She was nominated by Emily Thompson from Greenhead College, who said: “Olivia is a fantastic role model for young girls proving that with determination, hard work and commitment you can achieve your dreams.

“Unfortunately acrobatic gymnastics is entirely self-funded so every time Olivia competes - whether that be for club or country - she has to raise large sums of money through various fundraising initiatives.”

Olivia is already the 11-16 Women’s Pair World Champion. In March 2016 Olivia and her partner, Jessica Gledhill from Deepcar, won gold at the ninth Acrobatic Gymnastics World Age Group Competitions in China, beating 29 rival pairs from all over the world.

While a student at Shelley College Olivia achieved 11 GCSE passes: seven grade As and 4 A*s.

She was also a sports leader there and has been coaching gymnastics at Kirkburton Middle School for the last two years.

Olivia is the daughter of Andrew and Philippa Procter and she has an elder sister, Eleanor, who is a former British gymnastics champion.

Huddersfield’s Fern Beaumont is the best female bowler under 18 in Britain, winning two national titles in a year.

And she has also been the Yorkshire girls champion for the last two years.

Fern, now 19, has bowling in her blood as her two brothers, parents and grandmother are all bowlers at Broad Oak in Linthwaite where the family lives.

Fern Beaumont of Huddersfield won the British Crown Green Bowling Junior Girls title 2017

She won the British Ladies Crown Green Bowling Association Junior Merit 18 and under trophy by defeating fellow Huddersfield Inter-district A team player Sophie Brown in the final at Heswall British Legion Club on the Wirral.

She staged a remarkable comeback to take the honours 15-14.

And earlier this month she won the British Crown Green Ladies Average Winners Classic which was held in Doncaster. It showed her amazing fighting spirit once again for in the first round she was 20-10 down against former winner Alyson Evans (North Warwickshire) but kept going to win 21-20.

Fern used to bowl at Paddock Cricket and Bowling Club and has recently moved to New Mill Working Men’s Club where she competes in Section A of the Huddersfield Ladies Bowling League.

The former Colne Valley High School pupil said: “I started at the age of seven and come from a real bowling family. I love bowling. It’s great fun meeting so many people and most of my friends I’ve met through bowling. It’s so wrong that people think of it as a sport for older people as many young people now play it. In fact, many of my bowling friends are younger than me.”

Her late grandad, Brian, bowled at Broad Oak and her grandmother, Freda, still plays there along with Fern’s parents Russell and Wendy and her two brothers Rhys, 23, and Connor, 21.

Fern has recently finished an animal management course at Kirklees College’s Taylor Hill Centre where its animal care and countryside management courses are run.

She is now looking for a job working with animals.

She’s only 15 yet Aaliyah Powell is already a world champion at Taekwondo.

She won the junior title in her weight division in Tunisia and after also winning the qualification place is now going through the selection process to hopefully represent GB at the youth Olympic Games in Argentina in October.

The Shelley College student became British champion last September, defeating the former number one junior female athlete in impressive style.

She then went on to win silver at the European Championships, losing to her Russian opponent by the tiniest of margins.

Community Awards: Sports Personality. Aaliyah Powell, Junior Olympic Taekwondo medal winner.

This January Aaliyah won the GB Taekwondo female development athlete of the year award and was selected to represent GB at the junior world championships and youth Olympic games qualifier which took place last month in Tunisia.

Now classed as a Junior in the Taekwondo world she has won gold medals in Belgium, Holland and Greece and made it through a gruelling selection process to win a place at the National Taekwondo Academy in Manchester mentored by the likes of double Olympic gold medallist Jade Jones and double world champion Bianca Walkden.

To work at such a high level Aaliyah trains both in Manchester and also in Sheffield at the Quest Taekwondo Club coached by Mike Mckenzie.

Huddersfield's Aaliyah Powell Junior World Taekwondo Champion

Mike, who was sport manager for Taekwondo at the 2012 London Olympics, said: “Aaliyah is a world class athlete, the best in the UK at this time and there’s no disputing that. She has had a phenomenal first year as a junior athlete and I am sure she will deliver Olympic success.

“Aaliyah is also a great kid who has a great sense of humour and is always helping other young athletes with their training. She is already a great athlete with tremendous potential and is also an extremely pleasant and friendly young woman with an amazing future ahead of her.”

Aaliyah lives in Fenay Bridge with parents Clinton and Sharron and elder sisters Lauren, 23, and Ashleigh, 25.