Former Olympic champion and current triple jump world record holder Jonathan Edwards was full of praise for the Isle of Man's sporting success when he opened the Institute of Sport at the NSC today.

The facility will provide Manx athletes with top-class training facilities, performance assessment and physiotherapy, among other things.

Mr Edwards says he's been amazed by what he's seen here.

He told Manx Radio:

"I don't think I'd quite anticipated the level of sporting facilities and the commitment to elite sport that there is here.

"Obviously you have some great athletes coming from here, particularly you think of Mark Cavendish, the success he's having in the Giro [d'Italia] and hopefully in the Tour [de France] coming up.

"But I think it's outstanding - a system that works really well, which gives young people on this Island a great opportunity to develop their sporting talents.

"It provides inspiration to have somebody like a Mark Cavendish who succeeds here, in what is a remote place - sometimes aspiration levels can be low because of that, but I don't get any sense of that here.

"You grow up on this Island and there is a sense of 'can do' and anything is possible, and I've loved my time here."