Budding sports journalists from across the UK have won roles reporting on the forthcoming London Olympics.

A group of students from News Associates, Staffordshire University, St Mary’s University College and the University of Brighton will be covering London 2012 after securing roles which will take them to the heart of the Games.

The students have gained positions working for ITV, the Independent, the British Olympic Association and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).

And they will blog about their experiences on a webpage set up by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Mitch Sayers, who started the MA Journalism course at Staffordshire University last year, has landed a role dealing with pictures and videos from the Paralympics for ITV, as well as flagging up newsworthy items for ITN.

He said: “I had an interview with a senior ITN editor for various positions that were coming up over the summer.

“Speaking of passions for journalism and a wish to get involved in London events, she said there might be places available to work on the Olympics and Paralympics. I said I’d love to be involved in such a big event and a few days later I was offered the position of picture logging for the Paralympics.”

Jon Vale, a student from the University of Brighton, has secured a position with LOCOG reporting on press conferences for the Olympic and Paralympic News Service, which is responsible for providing the media with a Games information service.

He said: “I’m going to be working for the Olympic and Paralympic News Service – the Games’ official press agency – reporting on press conferences from both the media centre and the athletes’ village.

“It’s all about getting fast, accurate and balanced reports on to the wire as quickly as possible, something that’s really engrained in any NCTJ course, and my work could well appear in newspapers and websites all around the world.”

Journalism tutors are also getting involved, with News Associates lecturer James Toney set to run with the Olympic torch at the end of June in Surrey and Neil Silver, a lecturer from Harlow College, supervising the Olympic News Service.

The University of Sunderland is hosting the Grenadian Olympic team for a pre-Games training camp and a team of Sports Journalism students from the BA and MA courses will be writing stories on the team during their time there for its dedicated website.