Charity on the hunt for competitive athletes

Wednesday 18 December 2019

A local sporting charity is on the hunt for competitive athletes as part of a transfer programme that aims to give them more opportunities to shine on a national and international stage.

The Jersey Sport Foundation launched ‘Project Gold’ to transfer local athletes into new sports that will give them more realistic opportunities to be competitive, while enabling them to train like world class athletes.

Founded in April 2014 to assist the development of emerging and established athletes in Jersey, the charity aims to build upon the success of the recent Power2Podium campaign, which saw Charlotte Neale and Rachel Leck achieve Great Britain representations and the Fight4Gold transfer programme through which jiujitsu athletes joined into the Island Games Judo team.  

Pictured: The Fight 4 Gold team took part in the Island Games this year.

In partnership with Jersey Sport, Project Gold will offer disciplines events across five sports. These will include coastal rowing, Olympic weightlifting, judo, hurdles (100m, 110m, 400m and steeple chase), pole vault – a novelty for Jersey - and throws (discus, hammer and shot). 

The project also includes para powerlifting, which will give disabled athletes an avenue to the Commonwealth Games. 

All sports have been picked based on the likelihood of high-level achievement, the levels of support available in Jersey, facilities, coaching and cost as well as Olympic status and the value to Jersey.  

Pictured: Rachel Leck recently took part in the BWL English National ParaPowerlifting Championships.

“We want to do what we have done for Charlotte and judo for other sports,” John Scriven, Head of Services at the Jersey Sport Foundation.

“We tried finding sports that require a good physical skill set. Jersey is a small place; we can’t compete with countries with 100 million people. If you pick the right sports and identify them in the right way, we can be competitive. 

“We have to be intelligent about it and provide athletes with the support they need.”

Each discipline will call for a different background but one thing the JSF is adamant on is that all potential athletes must have been in competitions previously and be “really, really focused” on competing at the highest level of their sport.

“This is a performance programme not a participation programme,” Mr Scriven said. 

The JSF is looking to recruit about 40 current or ex-athletes – 10 in each sport – with the youngest recruit being around the age of 12 or 13.

They will be coached by a team of ex-athletes and champions, including Ricky Ruelle, Peter Irving, Mike Bisson and Bill Baker.

Pictured: Charlotte Neale was part of Team GB at the European Youth Weightlifting Championships in Israel.

Most of the programmes will be open to male and female athletes except for weightlifting. Due to the complexity of male weightlifting, the JSF is focusing on female weightlifters, although Mr Scriven is not ruling out taking a male athlete on if they are “exceptional”.

The Power to Podium’s youngest recruit, Charlotte Neale (15), has recently become the first athlete from the Channel Islands to represent Great Britain in Olympic Weightlifting.

After being crowned English Champion, British Champion and British Record Holder in the U15 U55kg category, Charlotte easily achieved the selection standard and travelled with the GB team to Israel for the European Youth Weightlifting Championships, her first international competition.

Pictured: Charlotte equaled her personal best and British record at the Championships.

Mr Scriven explained that it is normal for athletes to slightly under perform in their first international outing, but Charlotte impressed the team.

“For Charlotte to equal her personal best and try to push further was a real demonstration of her sprit for international competition,” he said. “It is always a risk taking a junior to this level of competition, but she performed impeccably.”

While she narrowly missed out on a significant increase to her personal best due to a technical referee decision, Charlotte finished 13th in the competition, making her one of the top athletes in Europe. 

Pictured: The JSF is based on the fourth floor of Charter Place (23-27 Seaton Place). 

The JSF will be holding two open evenings, on Thursday (19 December) and 9 January at 17:30 on the fourth floor of Charter Place (23-27 Seaton Place) for anyone interested to hear more about the project or join the program. 

Mr Scriven hopes that athletes who join Project Gold will be able to reach the same heights as Charlotte by competing on a national level. 

“The ultimate objective is that we produce realistic opportunities for islanders to be competitive in national or international competitions with support and intelligent mapping of sports,” he explained.

“Transfer programmes have been successful in the UK. It is a second chance of some sort, done with intelligent identification and selection.”