Winchester bobsleigh athlete raising funds for Olympic dream

Charlotte Longden is looking to raise money to help her fulfil her dream of competing in the bobsleigh at the Winter Olympics.

Bobsleigh might be an odd choice of sports for a girl from Winchester, Charlotte spoke about how she ended up competing for Team GB; “I did a lot of athletics when i was younger and was competing in the heptathlon for Bath Athletics Club at nationals and was scouted to do trials for to compete in bobsleigh at the Youth Olympics, got into the team and haven’t looked back since.” Charlotte now attends University of Leeds for her studies as well as training for upcoming competitions.

Charlotte went onto say:”The inaccessibility of it (bob sleighing) is quite a big issue as you have to travel for it, however i would say the funding is a major issue for pretty much every nation and athlete because there is very little funding for it as it’s not a widely covered sports which all of us as athletes are trying to change.” Despite the lack of funding Charlotte has been able to make it to some snow in Lativa for pre-season training.

Charlotte reiterated the importance of funding as she said; “When you look at all the costs adding up you see that funding is the biggest issue, but i think that it’s something that can be over come with more media attention.” Charlotte has been doing lots of crowd funding over the last two months to help cover some of the big costs and has been looking for some local Hampshire businesses to sponsor her to help achieve her Olympic dream.

Here is a link to Charlottes GoFundMe page.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/charlotte-longdens-journey-to-olympic-glory