The Difference Your Contribution Makes
Many people are oblivious to the extent of the struggle athletes face. From the outside it my appear like an easy life, glamorous even. Some may think that going to the gym, travelling the world and competing in events every now and again is a breeze. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Many athletes on the various pro circuits are hustling constantly to try to raise the money required to continue to pursue their careers, fulfil their potential and keep climbing up the rankings. Many people have the misconception that because the top players, the household names, the Rodger Federer’s and the Tiger Wood’s earn a huge amount of winnings, that the other pro’s receive a significant amount too. Wrong. As our last blog post “What it Means to be a Pro” illustrates, the prize money is focused mainly at the very top of the spectrum and whittles down to the lower end of the scale drastically.
The vast majority of pro sportspeople are constantly travelling from competition to competition in order to earn the money to further their careers. This can be of huge expense. Travelling and accommodation are among the dominant outlays for athletes. To keep costs down, sports people often resort to staying in shared hostel rooms or flying to distant airports to save a few quid here and there. They have to scrimp and make huge sacrifices to make their funds go further. Frugality is a priority and a necessity for a pro. Many must travel to competitions alone as they cannot afford to bring their coach with them and oftentimes they sacrifice physiotherapy after competitions as it is just too costly for them. This can lead to injury which knocks them out of the game all together.
By contributing any amount to our athletes’ crowdfunding campaigns, you are drastically reducing their financial burden. By supporting them financially in their sporting endeavour, you are hugely improving their performance as you are easing their worries so they can focus fully on their sport. Through your generosity, these pro’s can go on to succeed.
Irish Female No.1 Tennis player Amy Bowtell ran a PledgeSports project and secured €3,785 in excess of her €10,000 target. This is an incredible result and enabled Amy to progress in her career. By having such success, Amy’s confidence soared as she saw that so many people believed in her and her talent and this gave her the extra push to keep going. In April, she went on to win an ITF Tournament in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. This was a massive achievement for her. Fellow tennis player, James Cluskey also had huge success. His funds raised enabled him to travel to Italy, China, Japan and Kazakhstan to represent Ireland in various tennis tournaments. Triathlete Kevin Thornton also exceeded his funding goal and put the money raised towards his travel towards international triathlon events.
All of our athletes are overwhelmed by the level of kindness shown by all their supporters. By taking the time to read their stories and actually feel compelled to help them financially it gives them such a huge boost and makes them feel that all their hard work is worthwhile. They are extremely grateful and are even more motivated to succeed as a result. This support means the world to them.
In the coming weeks we’ll have previous PledgeSports Athletes write about what your contributions have helped them to accomplish.