By offering a financial boost as well as recognition and encouragement, SportsAid helps young talented athletes as they begin their journey in performance sport. It is the first, and often, the only support these athletes can access and is often the difference between succeeding and losing sight of their sporting dream.

Not only does it take commitment, determination, hard work and huge sacrifice to make it to the top in sport our athletes have many other challenges to face:

Our athletes spend, on average, £5,000 per year to cover costs such as travel, equipment/kit, coaching and physiotherapy.*

Balancing their academic life with training and competing.*

Travelling on average 650 miles per month to training and competitions.*

Training at least 17 hours per week.*

Over the past 31 years, SportsAid has helped many of today’s sporting heroes when they started out. This includes athletes connected to 18 of the 19 British Gold Medals won in Beijing such as Rebecca Adlington, Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, Christine Ohuruogu and James DeGale and a third of the Paralympic Gold medals won including Eleanor Simmonds, David Stone, Danielle Brown and David Roberts.

SportsAid works with the National Governing Bodies, across 50 different disciplines, to identify athletes worthy of support. This means that partners and supporters can be confident that the right athletes are being supported at the right time.

To find out more about the work of SportsAid visit www.sportsaid.org.uk.

*Statistics are taken from SportsAid’s Annual Athlete Survey.