Two promising Hawke’ Bay athletes, sprinter Georgia Hulls and kayaker Elise Legarth, have had some surprising and much welcomed financial support from two sisters, that has taken being a sports fan to a new level.

Napier woman Rachael Shaw was looking for a way of giving back to the community that was outside of the norm.

“I wanted to support an up and coming local sports star to enable them to be the best they can without worrying about how to get little bits of money together to compete. I just wanted to give some financial support, and the only criteria I had was to help an athlete in a sport that I knew nothing about,” she said.

Rachael approached Sport Hawke’s Bay with her idea and asked for their assistance in identifying and selecting an athlete.

Sport Hawke’s Bay chief executive Mark Aspden helped put in place some structure around the criteria and developed a short list of athletes to meet with Rachael.

“I wasn’t too keen to interview short listed candidate because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. However, Mark suggested that it would be a great learning experience for the candidates, as they would need to go out and get funding support at some stage.

“I ended up with two stand outs in Georgia and Elise and it was going to be a tough decision. I spoke to my sister Angela about the difficult decision and instead of having to make a call, she liked what I was doing and decided to support Elise.

During the last year Rachael has followed Georgia’s performances on the track as well as building a close relationship with the Hulls family.

Last year Rachael was on a bike tour of Romania and in Europe on holiday at the same time Georgia and Elise were competing in Europe.

“Georgia was competing in Poland, so I went and supported her and Elise was in Belarus, so I looked it up on the map and it wasn’t too far from where I was, so I got on a plane and went and supported her too.”

Rachael says the idea to financially support an athlete has been huge success and she is now keen to set up a Trust with Angela, who lives in Australia, dedicated to supporting other young sportspeople. She also hopes other locals will consider financially backing athletes.

“It’s been great fun supporting Georgia and Elise and I hope others consider it. There is very little, if any funding for developing athletes at this level so they need people to give them a hand.”

Georgia is rapt with the support from Rachael and says it goes a long way to helping cover her training, equipment and travel costs, which last year amounted to $30,000.

“It’s great having financial support, so I can get to events and lower my times, but it’s also been so good having the emotional and mental support and having someone that has a genuine interest in what I am trying to achieve and how I’m going.”

Georgia emails Rachael every fortnight with training and race updates as well as keeping in contact via regular text messages.

“We also get together for dinners and Rachael comes and supports me at meets like the Potts Classic,” Georgia says.

Georgia is in her final year at Havelock North High School. She is targeting the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the 2018 IAAF World Junior Championships in Finland next July. At this stage she’s hoping to race in the 200 metres but needs to beat the New Zealand qualifying time of 23.10 seconds. Her best time so far is 23.80s.

Elise is now studying at Waikato University and is one of the newest members of New Zealand’s high performance canoe racing squad.

Mark Aspden says the personal giving idea is a great way to support young sportspeople realise their dreams and he hopes there may be others in the community that are keen to support a young athlete.

“It’s been an incredible journey for everyone involved. It takes away some of the financial pressure that’s usually placed on Mums and Dads of sports people and it also provides an additional supporter and mentor to their support crew.

“We would love to see this develop further and we are here to assist,” he said.

For further information please contact Mark Aspden, Sport Hawke’s Bay chief executive 021 439 449