GLL Sport Foundation invites talented athletes from Bath and North East Somerset to apply for 2023 Sports Awards as part of its fifteenth anniversary.

The UK’s largest independent athlete support programme opens its annual Award programme for new applications.

Talented athletes from across sixty-five areas across the UK are invited to apply for a range of support awards which include financial support, access to sport facilities, physiotherapy, lifestyle mentoring and mental health support.

The GLL Sport Foundation celebrates its fifteenth year in 2023 and it is the UK’s largest independent athlete award programme which has so far contributed over £13m to help over 24,000 athletes on their sporting journey.

The innovative scheme is provided by charitable social enterprise GLL and expects to award £1.2m worth of help in 2023 for successful applicants. Already a popular and essential support programme for athletes, the Foundation is expecting heightened athlete interest as the cost of living crisis hits and training costs, equipment purchases, strength & conditioning costs and travel costs continue to rise.

All successful applicants will be given access to the two-hundred-and-fifty sport and leisure facilities across the UK operated by GLL under its “Better” trading brand.

Applications are open from until 20th February 2023.

Over the past fifteen years, GLL Sport Foundation supported athletes have excelled in major competitions and have gained seventy-six Olympic and Paralympic medals and seventy-seven Commonwealth Games medals. Previous holders of GSF awards include Darryl Neita (athletics), Anna Hursey (table tennis), Charlotte Worthington (BMX), Alex Yee (triathlon), boxers Anthony Joshua, Aiden and Michaela Walsh, divers Tom Daley, Matty Lee and Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix, swimmers Tully Kearney, Susie Rodgers, Tom Dean and Ellie Simmons.

It has always however been a core mission of the programme to support young emerging talent on their sporting journey, with the majority of athletes aged under the age of twenty one and the largest cohort under eighteen years old. Across the programme, eighty-seven per cent of athletes receive no other funding or athlete support, which underlines the importance of the scheme to both athletes and GLL’s social values.

Peter Bundey, GLL Sport Foundation Chair, paid tribute to the support of Foundation Patron Sally Gunnell and all partners involved in the programme including; SportsAid, Mary Peters Trust, SportsAid Wales, sponsors, medical and local authority partners and a new collaboration for 2023 with Switch The Play, who will provide wider mentoring and mental health support. “Our awards work alongside a number of national talent pathways, provide a lifeline to individual athletes as well as helping local communities discover the opportunities and enrichment that comes through sport”.

Daryll Neita, who secured a bronze in the women’s 100m and a silver in the 4x4 100m relay at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games said: “I am so thankful for the support I have received from GLL Sport Foundation. My first individual medal ever is extremely special and I would not be here if it wasn’t for the support I have received from the GLL ‘family’.”

The successful impact of the Foundation is important to Patron Sally Gunnell OBE, who remains the only athlete to hold consecutive Olympic, World and Commonwealth titles. She said: “From my own experience starting out as a young athlete and progressing through my sport, I understand how important the recognition and support from organisations like the GLL Sport Foundation can be to a young athletes. It can make the difference in achieving sporting ambitions.

“This is ever-more important today as we recover from a difficult and challenging two years, where dreams have been put on hold and sport had to stop. Athletes can now refocus having re-started competition and working towards those goals with the support of the GLL Sport Foundation.”

Applications are open until 20th February 2023 via the website portal – www.gllsportfoundation.org.