Olivia Breen competes in the women's T38 long jump at the World Para Athletics Championships in France last month. Photo: Icon Sport Olivia Breen's phone hasn't stopped ringing since winning the silver medal at the World Para Athletics Championships last month in Paris. Messages of congratulations were mixed with messages of surprise.
«A lot of able-bodied athletes wrote to me and said, 'Oh my gosh, Livvy, I can't believe this happened to you.' It wouldn't have happened to us.» It was crazy,” says Brin, one of the leading British paraathletes, in an interview with Telegraph Sport.
Brin's silver — an improvement on her long jump bronze at the World Championships in Dubai four years earlier — was overshadowed by the fact that her request to withdraw from the T38 100m was denied by the event organizers.
Never wanted to refuse before The 27-year-old asked to be withdrawn from the race due to an ankle problem that began to worsen during the championship. Breen's leg continued to lock up at full speed and she was in danger of not being able to perform at her best in her favorite sport, the long jump.
“Before, I never wanted to give up racing,” says Breen, who was born with cerebral palsy and is partially deaf. “But when they told me that I had to do it, I felt very uncomfortable. My coach and I were very angry about this, because he said: «How dare they force an athlete to do something that he does not want.»
World Para Athletics told Telegraph Sport that «the health and safety of all participants is the highest priority» and that the decision was made by the Medical Delegates, «who have the ultimate authority on all medical matters.»
Faced with the situation, which she had never faced in her career, Brin had no choice but to compete. Finishing fourth in her 100 m heat, she qualified as the fastest loser in the final, where she placed sixth. By the time she was able to focus on the long jump, she had other thoughts on her mind.
“If I hadn’t won a medal, my funding could have been cut”
“My funding is based on long jump, so if I didn’t win a medal, it could be cut, and that’s why I I was very nervous,” Brin says. «It was very unfair to do something that I didn't want to.»
Since Brin burst onto the Paralympic scene as the youngest member of Team GB at the London 2012 Games, Breen has won two Commonwealth titles, a European Champion and also a two-time World Champion. Despite her applause, she has tossed between different funding groups throughout her career and claims that over the past decade she has hardly seen an overall increase in her National Lottery grant.
“I thought that now that the cost life has grown, we will get a little more, but this is not so, ”she says. “Fortunately, I succeed because I have Adidas and I am a Sky sponsored athlete. But for those who simply rely on their funding, it is difficult.”
According to UK Sport, the agency that distributes funding to more than 1,000 participants in Olympic and Paralympic sports, the average salary for an athlete funded by the National Lottery has increased by just under 20 percent since 2013. according to the inflation calculator of the Bank of England, goods and services have become 13% more expensive than in 2013.
Brin, whose current Athlete Performance Award (APA) grant is worth less than the average UK salary in 2013 (£27,011), bought her first home earlier this year. She considers herself lucky because of the sponsorship she has, but not the type to sugarcoat the situation. “If I didn’t have a medal, it would be very difficult,” she says of her silver medal at the World Championships. “People don’t understand how merciless this is.”
Funding the cost of living is a “welcome step”
A spokesman for UK Sport said: «APAs are intended to cover living and sporting expenses and are only part of an overall athlete funding package that also includes private health insurance, access to personal development awards and an average of £50,000 a year which go to cover the costs of training, sports science and medicine, travel, accommodation and equipment.
Due to the cost of living crisis, UK Sport is giving away an additional £500 to each sponsored athlete this year, and a relief fund has also been set up to help those experiencing 'exceptional' financial hardship.
This is a welcome move , although Breen suggests that para-athletes are already at a visibility disadvantage, which limits the opportunity to attract sponsors.
“In athletics, you have a Diamond League, but para-athletes don’t exist in sports, so there is room to grow,” she says. “It would be great to have as many para-athletics events as possible and help people understand disability better; The 2012 Paralympics [London Paralympics] was a huge breakthrough for Paralympic sport, but it hasn't really mattered since then.»
Now Brin is working on his dream of being on the podium again at the next Paralympic Games in Paris.
“It took me nine years to win that race [100m] at the Commonwealth,” she says. «It just proves: don't give up, always keep trying and believe in yourself.»
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