Brother slams fake fundraising page after Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore dies

The brother of Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore, who tragically passed away earlier this week, has called out a fake fundraising page.

A fake fundraising page set up for Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore has been slammed by her brother on Facebook.

Olivia Podmore, 24, represented New Zealand at the 2016 Rio Olympics and died suddenly on Monday.

This week her brother Mitchell shared a screenshot of a fake fundraising page entitled “Help Olivia Podmore”, created by “Team Podmore”.

“I hope this is not what I’m seeing, the Podmores have not started a gogetfunding or ‘give a little’ page,” read his post.

“Do not react to this,” he added, with a broken heart emoji.

Olivia Podmore competing at the World Championships last year.

Family spokesperson Mike Pero said the only official fundraising taking place was through an internal Mike Pero Group.

Commenters on Mitchell’s Facebook post showed similar outrage to that expressed by the grieving brother.

“So sorry that some disgusting human would try taking advantage of everything you are going through!” read one comment.

Another commented that they had received a post about the fundraising page, but had been sceptical it was the family.

The initial screenshot showed a target of $50,000, but the campaign appears to have been taken down since Mitchell’s post.

Olivia Podmore competed at the 2016 Rio Games.

Olympic rower Eric Murray spoke to the media in Cambridge on Tuesday, describing Podmore as one of his closest friends.

“I was with her this time yesterday (Monday) and I wish she had said something,” Murray said.

“Her death is a shock and a tragedy.”

Murray said Podmore’s last messages on social media that spoke of the pressures of competing at the highest level — since taken down — would need to be dealt with at some stage.

“With Olivia’s final words she left us a message — a message we wish will never have to be read again by anybody else,” Murray said.

Murray is reported to have shared a weekend with Podmore snowboarding in Queenstown before saying goodbye to her on Sunday.

“I was the last person to see her alive,” Murray posted on social media.

“If you had seen her in the last 72 hours, you would never have thought this could happen.”

This article originally appeared on the NZ Herald and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Brother slams fake fundraising page after Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore dies