Olympic athletes are going through what, for others, would seem like eternal suffering because they chose doing sports as a career path and it’s one that is not easy to go through. It requires a lot of physical endurance as well as mental. And of course, you have to have money to be able to use equipment, train and be able to compete in competitions.
But even lack of funds couldn’t stop the British BMX racer Bethany Shriever from going to the Olympics. The United Kingdom stopped funding the female BMX racers to put the money into preparing the male team, but Bethany found a solution and now she has a gold medal around her neck.
British BMX racer Bethany Shriever had to go to the Olympics on her own funds as the UK government did not spare finances for the female team
Image credits: bethanyshriever
Bethany Shriever is a 22-year-old British BMX racer who was invited to join the Olympic cycling squad. The problem is that preparing for the Olympics is very expensive and without government funding, this task is quite complicated.
After the 2016 Olympics, when none of the female riders qualified for the Games, the United Kingdom decided that the female riders would not be supported financially for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and that money would be invested only into the male team.
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She launched a crowdfunding page and managed to collect the amount of money she needed to go to Tokyo
Image credits: PA
But the Olympics is every athlete’s dream and is considered the peak of their career, so Bethany saw a solution. She calculated how much it would cost to go to Tokyo to compete and launched a crowdfunding page back in 2019. Her parents helped her as much as they could and what is more, she worked as a teaching assistant in a nursery to reach the goal of collecting £50,000 ($70,000) needed to depart to Japan.
What makes this story even more impressive is that it wasn’t the only complication Bethany had to overcome. She has broken the same wrist three times and she had to recover from a tibia and fibula fracture that even needed insertion of metal plates into her leg. But she persevered and now she is an Olympic champion.
Image credits: AP
And then she won the gold medal, proving that every difficulty can be overcome
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She beat the two-time Olympic gold medal winner, Colombian Mariana Pajon, who was actually her idol. And now Bethany herself became an inspiration to many as she and her teammate Kye Whyte are Britain's first BMX medalists.
Kye Whyte won a silver medal just ten minutes earlier and he told BBC, "I'm more happy for her than I am for me. That girl puts in some serious serious graft."
Image credits: Reuters
It is a big win as she earned the first medal from BMX sports in British history
Image credits: PA
Bethany told Sky News that she couldn’t completely comprehend what just happened: “It is still surreal. I haven’t had a chance to think about it, I haven’t had a chance to myself since the race. I’m over the moon.”
It is truly quite surreal knowing the circumstances and it was a close finish—Bethany won by just 0.09sec. And she can be extra proud as she got there all by herself and the medal is certainly deserved.
People loved everything about Bethany's story and felt that she very much deserved the win
