Ireland's chances of taking a medal away from Rio 2016 have been boosted with the news that an online crowd funding appeal by one rider has netted a single donation of £10,000, or just over €14,200. Paracyclist Katie-George Dunlevy, left, launched the appeal a couple of months ago and will use the unexpected cash to fund her journey to the Games, with pilot Eve McCrystal.
If there was a gold medal for crowd funding, Irish paracyclist Katie George Dunlevy would already have it hung around her neck.
A couple of months ago she established a crowd funding page on PledgeSports.org, also featuring her pilot tandem Eve McCrystal.
And while many riders struggle to even raise a few hundred Euro via crowd funding, Dunlevy’s appeal has generated almost €15,000.
The campaign ended with £10,122 pledged, or €14,440 when converted to Euros to be precise.
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And the vast majority of that came from a UK businessman who weighed in with an eye-watering donation of £10,000, or €14,266.
The man who pledged the cash was Peter de Bourcier, one of the co-founders of online retailer Play.com and whom Dunlevy was able to contact through her family circle.
With medals from major championships already in their palmares, Dunlevy and McCrystal are the real deal and are definitely medal contenders for Rio. Above, riding TT at the World Road Championships last year in the United States where they took silver in the road race.
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The funding comes as a massive boost to her efforts to get to Rio; a hugely expensive endeavour that will comfortably mop up any funding from the Irish authorities and this top-up donation.
With the level of travel for competition and training camps that will need to be done between now and Rio, not to mention a whole range of other expenses for two - including new bikes - the Irish duo face big financial demands over the next 10 months.
And with richer nations like Great Britain and Australia very significantly funding their Paralympic riders, the donation goes some way to levelling up the playing pitch for Dunlevy, who is visually impaired, and her pilot McCrystal.
The pairing has been successful in the last couple of years, taking silver in the road race at the Paracycling World Road Championships in the US last year.
This year they took a bronze at the UCI Paracycling World Track Championships in the Netherlands and are real medal contenders for Rio.
Stay tuned for an interview with Dunlevy shortly.
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