Gym Of The Year: Armageddon takes winner's title

The votes are in and we can announce the winner of the Sunderland Echo’s Gym Of The Year 2016.

Since January we have asked you to vote for who you thought should be given the coveted crown of the best gym in the area.

We wanted you to take into consideration what it was that you thought gave your gym the edge, what lifted it above its rivals and gave you what you wanted.

And you did.

Thanks to the strength of this year’s entrants we’ve had hundreds of votes registered for the gyms that featured in the top 10.

But in the end there could be only one winner – Armageddon, in the Queens Court Business Centre in Southwick.

In second place came Treadmill Fitness in The Broadway and third place went to Club Zest in Sea Road.

The Gym of the Year was about much more than just finding the best-equipped facilities – we wanted to hear about the places that go the extra mile to give their customers special service, whether it be the luxury chains or the cheap and cheerful local venues where everybody knows your name – and our winner undoubtedly provides goes above and beyond the call of duty to provide service to remember.

Armageddon boss Stuart Roper was over the moon with the win.

“I am absolutely overwhelmed,” he said.

Stuart had been careful not to get his hopes up too much given the quality of the competition in this year’s vote.

“I was a little bit hopeful that we might be successful, but when you look at the number of clients that some of the gyms have, you realise just how hard it will be for a smaller business to win,” he said.

“But we have been quite successful and we have established a loyal customer base.

“I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped us to win this title and to all our customers who voted for us.

“I am very grateful for your support.”

The standard of competition in this year’s awards was extremely high and all ten gyms that made our final shortlist, revealed last month, can take pride in the achievement.

We thank all the gyms that participated in this year’s vote and hope they all enter again next year to see if they can be named Sunderland Echo Gym of the Year 2017.