The county’s sporting heroes gathered together to celebrate a year of fantastic achievements as Active Essex honoured the champions of grassroots and elite sport.

Active Essex is the county’s publicly-funded organisation whose aim is to make physical activity accessible to all residents.

The awards evening attracted Essex’s best sportsmen and women, including Olympic gymnasts Max Whitlock and Brinn Bevan, as well as local clubs who had helped inspire people to get active.

Chairman of Active Essex, Azeem Akhtar, said: “It’s been fantastic. To see the dedication to being active is great and we’ve got some real sporting champions amongst us, so it’s been really inspiring.

“It’s a great platform to motivate people for not only the next year but hopefully for the years beyond that.”

Basildon gymnast Max Whitlock, who is also nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, picked up the same prize for Active Essex and said: “I always say success breeds success so I think when little kids see what our team is doing, producing results hopefully it can inspire them.

“Active Essex has a massive influence on getting kids involved in sport. We have a shared mission to get kids involved in sport and they’re doing a brilliant job.”

Triathlete Kiera Tippett, 17, from Hadleigh, picked up the Young Sports Personality of the Year award.

She said: “I wasn’t expecting it at all. I was more nervous about walking up and not falling over so it came as a nice surprise. This is the cherry on top of such a good year. It motivates me even more because I’ve got the European and World championships coming up. My goal is to compete at the Olympics. I’ve just got to work really hard to get there.”

Also picking up a prize was Max and Brinn’s coach Scott Hann who didn’t know he was even nominated. He said: “I didn’t know I was up for an award so it’s a great honour. The experiences have taught me life lessons I will never forget.”