ATHLETES from India could be setting up camp in Colchester during the London 2012 Olympics.

Delegates from the booming Asian country are due to visit the town today for a look at venues, including Leisure World, Colchester Garrison’s athletics track, and the hockey pitch on Abbey Field.

Members of the Indian Olympic Association will then decide if the finest sportsmen and women drawn from India’s billion-strong population should use Colchester as a training camp.

The town’s facilities, which also include the Physical and Recreational Training Centre, in Berechurch Road, offer sports including basketball, archery, fencing and the martial art of taekwondo.

Martin Hunt, Colchester councillor responsible for leisure, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to bring international sports stars to the borough.

“It highlights the excellent facilities we have available within our local community and we hope it will serve to inspire our own promising sports stars of the future.”

The news was welcomed by Ishtiak Dudu, manager of the Indian Ocean restaurant, on North Hill.

A keen badminton and football fan, Mr Dudu, who has lived in Colchester for 12 years, said he would love to welcome India’s finest athletes to train in the town.

Despite its huge population – second only to China – very few Indian sportsmen and women have yet to strike Olympic gold.

In Beijing last year, Abhinav Bindra shot his way to gold in the Olympic 10m air rifle competition, while Indians won bronze medals in wrestling and boxing.

The big sports in India are cricket – not an Olympic sport – and hockey, in which India is currently ranked eighth in the world, although it dominated the sport until the Eighties.

Colchester’s sports facilities have been approved by the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games as suitable training camps for 2012.

A consortium of Colchester Council, Essex County Council, Colchester Garrison and Essex University is promoting the town’s facilities to attract international teams.

In May, a delegation from the Barbados Olympian Association visited Colchester and was very impressed, praising what it saw as “phenomenal”.