Thanks for taking time out to view my campaign.

My name is Brendan Boyce and I’m from Donegal in Ireland. I started out in sport at a very young age and as a kid watching the Olympics in Barcelona I knew that that was what I wanted to do. To achieve success for my country in the greatest sporting arena.

I was immersed in athletics since I was a toddler. I was the youngest of seven children and was always brought to events and just loved to run. I won my first national medal in the 60m sprint at the age of 7. Growing up as the youngest made me a scrapper and I always fought hard for everything, I always aimed to beat my siblings at whatever sport it was. Over the years I’ve won national medals in cross country, walks, volleyball and table tennis. I even played football, gaelic and basketball at a local level. However, it was racewalking that provided me with the outlet I needed. It has brought me to the highest standards of competition.

I was self coached for most of my racewalking days until I moved to Coventry in 2007 at the age of 20. There I was able to find a coach and athletes to train with. One training partner was at a qualifying standard for the 2008 Olympics and once I started, I was learning on a daily basis what it took to train at that level. I knew that I just needed to focus and train hard for 5 years and I could be there in London in 2012. The  rigid training regime and my dedication paid off. I made it to London and produced the best race of my life, finishing 29^th with a new Personal Best. It was what I had always wanted as a kid, to wear the green vest on the Olympic stage. It made it all the better to have it close enough to home that my family (my biggest supporters), friends and thousands of sports mad Irish fans could support me.

Now I have a new focus for my sport, the next step is to bring home some silverware for my country and to show that Ireland is and should be up there on the podium. I moved to Cork to train with now world champion Robert Heffernan. He has shown me the path to take but to win at a global level I need the support of a professional team around me – which is a huge financial challenge. The path to success is laid out in front of me, I want to be the one to inspire others the way I was inspired as a kid, but more importantly I want to lay down that path in front of them as well.

Thank you for supporting