Sports Gold Coast launches Grow For Gold 2032 Olympic initiative

Aspiring Gold Coast Olympians aged 11 to 21 have the opportunity to get $70,000 to chase their dreams ahead of the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics. READ HOW TO APPLY

Athletes Alexis Kalofonos, Lucy Simmonds, Jimmi Hill and Noa Annand celebrate the announcement of the Sports Gold Coast Grow For Gold initiative. Picture: Sports Gold Coast

Prospective Gold Coast 2032 Olympians and Paralympians will have the opportunity to apply for four groundbreaking Sports Gold Coast athlete grants to pursue their Olympic dreams.

The four chosen athletes will get $10,000 per year each for seven years leading up to the south-east Queensland Games to cover costs of their sporting endeavours.

Sports Gold Coast CEO Geoff Bower said it was an amazing opportunity to support aspiring Gold Coast athletes and for the entire community to rally behind four prospects of their own.

Bower launched the program on Friday with applications open from July 1-31. It’s open to any Gold Coaster competing in an Olympic or Paralympic sport aged between 11 and 21.

“We wanted to do a legacy project. We first started with an idea that we could maybe fund one athlete, but that just continued to grow,” Bower said.

“Now we’re funding four athletes and it’s a really game changing community driven initiative.

“The pathway is to get to Brisbane. We’re going to be dealing with all the national sports organisations, the regional sports organisations, state sports organisations, the Queensland Academy of Sport.

“We’ll be talking to high performance centres, schools, universities, sports clubs, we want everyone to know about it and give all the young athletes an opportunity to nominate.”

With a mammoth $280,000 to be donated over seven years, community support will be crucial to its success.

“That’s made possible through our growing membership base but it needs the assistance of the community, the business community,” Bower said. “Businesses who can see the benefit of being associated with this, we’ll be reaching out to them.

“We’re doing it but we can’t do it alone, we need the support of the community, we need the support of businesses, we need the support of corporations.

“We need the support of any individual who can see the benefit of being involved.”

Mr Bower said an association with the Australian Sports Foundation meant donations or partnerships could be tax-deductible “so that makes it attractive for some businesses”.

Bower was excited to see the impact it would have on the Gold Coast community as it foollows aspiring Olympians in pursuit of glory.

“The community engagement we expect to be really strong and we’re going to amplify that through social media updates where we want to portray the athletes as their team - the Gold Coast team,” he said.

“We almost see it as being a bit like The Truman Show where all these people sit around and watch their athletes grow over seven years.

“They’ll be our athletes and we’ll follow their progress intensely. We’ll follow them through content with video to see how they’re performing and training, how they’re performing at events.

“When they get to the big dance, if they get to Brisbane in 2032, the community will have a great sense of pride and should they podium or god forbid win gold, it will be mammoth stamp on our project.”

Athletes who wish to apply can do so via website growforgold.com.au

Originally published as Sports Gold Coast launches Grow For Gold 2032 Olympic initiative