Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell and Olympic gold medallist Jonathan Edwards have paid tribute to Shropshire’s role in the birth of the modern Games.

And they praised the enthusiasm of Shropshire people – particularly those from Much Wenlock – for keeping the Olympic spirit alive.

Miss Jowell and the former world record triple jumper were at the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London yesterday.

They presented awards to two amateur garden designers who have helped ensure that Wenlock’s link with the Olympics will be maintained before, during and after the games in 2012.

Hannah Clegg, 11, from Malmesbury, and Rachel Read, from Colchester, were winners in a competition run by the Royal Horticultural Society and Games organisers to design a garden for the Olympic Park.

A key feature in both their designs is a de Coubertin oak tree – currently being nurtured at Kew Gardens – which is a direct descendant of a Much Wenlock oak.

It was the Olympian Games of 1850, the brainchild of William Penny Brookes, which inspired Pierre de Coubertin to found the modern Olympic Games.

Spirit

The Olympics minister said: “We owe an enormous debt to Much Wenlock.

“When I went there I was incredibly struck by the determination in the town to keep the Olympic spirit alive – and that was before London had been chosen to host the 2012 Games.

“We shall be celebrating all over the country when the Games begin in 2012 but nowhere so much as in Much Wenlock.

“The Olympic Garden will make sure the partnership between Much Wenlock, Stratford and the Olympic Movement lives on.”

Jonathan Edwards said: “I knew nothing about the link between Much Wenlock and the Olympics until I visited the town and saw the letters exchanged between William Penny Brookes and Pierre de Coubertin.

“Now it is becoming well known throughout the world, and was mentioned in the annual de Coubertin Lecture by Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee.”

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne, who campaigned for the link to be part of the Olympic planning and helped judge the design competition, said: “The garden and its Shropshire oak tree will provide a lasting legacy of the link between London 2012 and Much Wenlock’s Olympian heritage.”

Hannah and Rachel will now work with professional landscape gardeners to incorporate their ideas in the Olympic Garden, due to be completed in 2011.

By John Hipwood