Pledge Sports

Self-Funding To Rio 2016? We Can Help

QUALIFIED for Rio 2016? Self-Funding? Not sure where you’re going to find the time or money to raise the bar for the Olympic Games in August? Take control of your time and olympic funding, just like these guys are already doing with PledgeSports.org.

Rosie Galligan, Middle Distance Runner

Rosie Galligan Runner Rio 2016 Olympics Self-Funding Campaign

  • Irish National 1500m Champion
  • Fastest Irish woman ever over 800m
  • 3rd fastest Irish woman ever over 1500m indoors
  • Fastest Irish junior woman ever over 3000m indoors

ROSIE Galligan’s personal best over 800m is well below the Rio 2016 Olympic Qualifying time of 2:01.50s, but it has been three years since she has run that time of 2:00.58s in competition and last year she dropped off the radar thanks to scores of injuries.

Self-funding and sore, she posted her slowest season in eight years in 2015. It was a low point. However, the time off has made her stronger. She put in six months of hard strength and endurance training and spent the winter doing supply teaching to pay for a high altitude camp in January. It paid off: in February she ran a lifetime best over 1500m.

Galligan was now back in form and posting exciting times. Rio 2016 glided into view. In order to continue to push her times though, she needed more high altitude camps, so she started a sports crowdfunding campaign on PledgeSports.org to alleviate the strains of self-funding and the support was phenomenal.

She raised more than £6,000 towards her training for Olympic qualification and opened her outdoor season at in California at the Jordan Payton Invitational with a 2:02.35.

Oliver Dingley, Diver

Oliver Dingley Irish Diver Olympic Funding Campaign

  • 2014 Commonwealth Games Bronze Medallist
  • 2014 Irish Open Champion in 1m & 3m springboard
  • 2010 Junior European Championships Gold Medallist

OLIVER Dingley joined Team Ireland late last year, entering the fray as the nation’s most exciting diving prospect for 60 years. He did so knowing that there wasn’t a diving programme, and little funding available.

What there was, was a place in the Rio 2016 Olympic team if he could qualify. He did that with ease and will go to Brazil as the first Irish Olympic diver since Eddie Heron’s exploits at London 1948.

The 24-year-old is supported by Swim Ireland and the Irish Sports Council, but the newness of elite diving to Ireland means he is largely self-funding and needs help. He has started a sports crowdfunding campaign on PledgeSports.org and is already a quarter of the way to raising his target.

Lucy Shuker, Wheelchair Tennis Player

Lucy Shuker Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Player

  • London 2012 Paralympic Games Bronze Medallist
  • Wimbledon Finalist 2009, 2010, 2012
  • Australian Open Grand Slam Finalist 2013 & 2010
  • British Disability Player of the Year 2010 & 2012

LUCY Shuker made history at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, when winning Great Britain’s first ever women’s wheelchair tennis medal – taking Bronze in doubles with Jordanne Whiley.

After that success four years ago, Shuker and Whiley are going for Gold at Rio 2016 and pushing everything to make that happen.

The pair receive funding from the Tennis Federation (British Wheelchair Federation) and the Lottery Fund, and are provided with assistance from the national coach, physic and massage therapist, but Shuker believes that the marginal gains achieved by bringing her personal coach are too great to pass up.

The cost of that is three weeks salary, accommodation and flights, which she would have to self-fund, so she began a sports crowdfunding campaign on PledgeSports.org.

The response attracted massive public support and also gained the attention of commercial sponsors who ultimately tipped her over her target and well on the way to £6,000.

Ireland Men’s Hockey Team
Irish Men's Hockey Team Self-Funding Rio Olympics

  • First Irish Hockey Team to qualify for Olympics 2016
  • First Irish sports team to compete at an Olympics since London 1948
  • 2015 European Championships Bronze Medallists
  • World Ranking: 12th

IRELAND’S Men’s Hockey Team qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympics last August in emphatic style, becoming the first Irish hockey team ever to do so – and the first Irish sports team to make it to an Olympic Games since London 1948.

They are an emerging force, churning out unexpectedly high performances, and as a result of this rapid rise have found themselves €225,000 shy of the necessary funding needed to complete their programme and preparations for the Olympic Games.

Much of the team works full-time and have been self-funding the majority of their training and travel thus far. Hockey Ireland decided to step in and help by backing a sports crowdfunding campaign on PledgeSports.org. It’s already raised nearly €33,000 in hockey funding.

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