OLD Elean Goldie Sayers is hoping to raise tens of thousands of pounds for the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund with her #TwoPointSixChallenge!
The Olympic Medallist said: “As a former athlete and recipient myself, I am a very proud trustee of the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund. We award over £40,000 in grants every year to around 200 young athletes to help them fulfil their potential in Athletics. The grant might help them buy training equipment, help with coaching costs or travel to training. The main fundraiser for the charity is always the London Marathon. Due to the postponement of the 2020 event, we are desperate to plug the £40,000 gap in funds. It will of course be Olympic year next year which makes this year’s grants even more important.
“In order to fundraise, I have joined forces with the 2.6 Challenge to run 2.6 miles on the 26th of April whilst throwing the javelin. I have recently given away all my javelins, but I still have my very first one from school! So I will find a suitable field to run 2.6 miles in whilst playing an elaborate game of fetch (good job I have a dog’s name!!). I will of course adhere to social distancing (the javelin will help) and appropriate health and safety precautions which will probably mean doing the challenge at dawn.
“If you are kind enough to donate then I will put you in a prize draw for an Olympic t-shirt. If you donate and leave a message where you guess the correct number of throws I have to take to run 2.6 miles then I will throw in (no pun intended) an Olympic jumper too.
“In order to guess appropriately, the javelin I’m using is over 25 years old and now banana-shaped and less than aerodynamic. It is lighter than the normal 600g women’s javelin but bear in mind that I am also four years into retirement and haven’t thrown a javelin since 2016. I am likely to have to throw from standing and left-handed for some of the challenge. Plus, I will certainly not be throwing off my usual 25m run-up as I’d like to be able to walk the next day. So, with those caveats in mind, happy guessing!!”
What a great initiative Goldie – to sponsor her or to find out more, go to: https://bit.ly/2zC38xt