A COMPANY based in Colchester is helping Qatar’s bid to host the Olympics in 2020.

As most people have their eyes fixed on London 2012, Sportsafe UK has secured a contract worth hundreds of thousands of pounds to upgrade Qatar’s sports facilities.

The firm, based in Eastgates, installs and maintains sports and fitness equipment at schools, leisure centres, councils and businesses.

It is expanding and taking on new workers and apprentices as it looks to the Middle East.

Jon Neill, managing director of Sportsafe, said the initial £100,000 contract could increase to £1million.

It has allowed him to set up a new Colchester company, SJD Sports International.

He said: “It’s been quite a good recession for us – we are advertising for more staff.

“Qatar has formed an Olympic committee to build up its sports facilities because they are going to be bidding for a future Olympics.

“The first order is for their handball facilities, but there’s lots of other work going on and we are hoping we will win that as well.”

The contract is for a new piece of gym equipment, a mobile sports’ hall divider, which can only be bought in Colchester as Sportsafe UK has the patent rights.

Mr Neill, 44, said he hoped the company’s break into the global market would see it expand further.

He said: “We now are looking for new engineers and IT people to fill the six jobs at our new division.

“We are quite proud of the fact when we started it was a one-man band and we had ten customers. Now we supply to 10,000 schools.”