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Becky Lyne, last summer's European 800 metres bronze medallist, is one of the British athletic stars awarded a training grant today by sports marketing company Nova International.
Lyne, who after a promising career at junior level, has been rewarded for her vast future potential along with Andrew Baddeley of Harrow AC.
Nova International revealed the pair will share a sum of £20,000 enabling them to pursue their preparations towards major international events, including this summer's World Championships and the 2008 Olympic Games.
In 2006 Mo Farah benefited from training in Australia with the likes of Craig Mottram and Benita Johnson at their training base in Falls Creek, North East Victoria. Farah went on in 2006 to make a major breakthrough claiming European silver on the track and a gold at Cross Country. It is hoped that similar benefits will be forthcoming for Becky and Andy over the coming year.
Speaking from Falls Creek Becky Lyne believes that her new training base is going to pay dividends in the summer:
“I’m working on getting a really solid aerobic base out here and I have a good group to run with including Sonia O’Sullivan, Australian steeplechaser Victoria Mitchell and Irish middle-distance runner Aoife Byrne. They definitely make the miles more fun, and competitive at times. It is a far cry from the injuries and lonely hours spent in the gym that I was contending with this time last year. Hopefully that bodes well for the summer” said the European 800m bronze medallist.
Becky continued, “The pattern for the next few months is to split my time between Falls Creek and Melbourne. The plan is perhaps to do a couple of races before I come back at the end of March but that will depend on how things go.”
The provision of funds in particular assists the athletes to decide where and when they will train and also provides a generous bursary for other expenses incurred as full-time athletes.
David Newton, managing director of Nova International, said: "We are delighted to be able to help support dedicated runners in their pursuit of excellence.
"Hopefully each individual grant will assist them in their ambitions of attaining major achievements at a global level.
"Preparations to do this are very important and we are sure Becky and Andy will use the grants to assist them enhance their already highly acknowledged abilities."
Newton revealed that this was not the first time that Nova International, organisers of the world’s biggest running programme, Great Run, has sponsored athletes.
He said: "We have always supported many worthwhile cases in the past and are proud that we helped steer the careers of several up-and-coming British internationals into becoming world beaters.
"Obviously it would be fabulous if our two latest benefactors could reap the same rewards, although world standards become tougher and tougher, year on year.
"However as a major organiser of world class athletics events, we are delighted to be playing a role in developing the ability of in this case, two of Britain’s top middle distance runners."
source GreatRun
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Time-to-Run
UK
