The Olympic legacy: Helping the athletes of tomorrow, today
WITH today marking the start of the one year countdown to the London 2012 Olympic Games, TheBusinessDesk.com has teamed up with charity SportsAid to highlight how the region’s business community can invest in Britain’s sporting future.
In just 8,760 hours the largest sporting event in British sporting history will be gearing up for its grand opening and despite all the hype, the disappointments and scepticism, the whole country will be captivated for the greatest show on earth.
Yorkshire has long been aiming to reap its fair share of benefits from the Games with more than 200 companies from the region already having won contracts connected to London 2012.
With a year to go there will be many more up for grabs and a whole host of other fantastic opportunities to align to the Games.
TheBusinessDesk.com has teamed up with SportsAid in Yorkshire to offer businesses the once in a life time opportunity to give a helping hand to Yorkshire’s rising stars and share in their success.
Over the coming weeks, TheBusinessDesk.com and SportsAid will be giving readers an insight into the next generation of Yorkshire champions as well as current GB athletes’ preparations for the Games, as well as providing information about the range of benefits available to businesses for supporting SportsAid at the single most important time ever for British sport.
According to SportsAid, the charity dedicated to helping the next generation of British sporting talent to succeed, one of the most tangible opportunities available to Yorkshire companies relates to the unique theme of the London Olympiad: that of the 2012 legacy.
That legacy could come in a number of forms but perhaps the most important, and the one most promoted by LOCOG, is the human legacy, according to SportsAid.
For SportsAid, central to the human legacy is inspiring young people to play more sport and to ensure there is a new generation of British champions coming through the ranks.
SportsAid makes awards to provide recognition and financial support to the right athletes at the right time in their development.
Every athlete to receive a SportsAid award is nominated by their sport’s governing body – ensuring the charity makes the very best use of its resources. Nine-tenths of these athletes say their award really makes a difference to their careers and 100% say the support is either helpful or essential.
In Beijing in 2008, more than a third of Britain’s 42 Paralympic gold medals and 18 of the country’s 19 Olympic gold medals went to athletes who have received support from SportsAid. In the last Olympics, one in five of the British team were from Yorkshire.
If SportsAid was a country it would have come fifth in the medal table in Beijing!
Since the charity was established in 1976, SportsAid has supported most of the country’s sporting legends including Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes, Chris Hoy and Tanni Grey-Thompson and Yorkshire’s own Sebastian Coe, Adrian Moorhouse, Peter Elliott and 2012 hopefuls Jessica Ennis, Paul Goodison and Joanne Jackson.
Typically recipients of monetary support from SportsAid are aged 12 to 18, already train 15 hours a week and spend £5,500 a year on their sport.
In the Yorkshire region alone, more than 250 athletes needed support last year and SportsAid is offering Yorkshire businesses the unique opportunity to support these future champions at a time when no one else does.
Businesses can benefit directly from the association to elite sport and build a long lasting relationship with the champions of the future. For many emerging athletes, the generosity of SportsAid’s partners and supporters is the difference between pursuing this ambition and not.
