Paralympics Ireland: Bringing you something More Than Sport this year!
Paralympics Ireland today marked the announcement of their 56-strong 2016 Athlete Panel with the launch of a powerful new awareness and fundraising campaign, ‘More Than Sport’.
The campaign is a massive push by Paralympics Ireland to raise vital and necessary funds for the road to Rio 2016, which will supplement recent Government funding that was allocated towards the cost of the Games and the Performance Programme.
After the dizzying heights of London 2012, we hope to see Irish athletes once more reach their full potential in Rio this year, with the tricolour soaring high and medals and Lifetime Bests to celebrate. But behind those medals, there’s more and behind those world records, there’s more. Our Paralympic athletes are more than elite athletes. They are elite athletes who have achieved and succeeded against all the odds. They are athletes who have faced adversity, and won. They are athletes who have often been told they can’t, to then go on and prove that in fact, they can, and will.
The Paralympics as a whole and the athletes themselves are so much more than sport and this campaign, brought to you through unique and captivating videos and behind the scenes interviews with our stars will allow you a glimpse into the essence of ‘more’ – more than training, more than determination, more than medals, more than sport.
‘More Than Sport’ itself will be the vessel through which athletes’ own stories will be told over the coming months. In essence, it will be a behind-the-scenes look into life as an elite Irish athlete, their training, their dedication and above all, what motivates them.
It is hoped that awareness built from the ‘More Than Sport’ campaign will help to push support towards the fundraising element, which will ask members of the public to get behind the athletes by texting PARA to 50300 to donate €4*.
The campaign kicked off this morning with a powerful video featuring a number of Paralympic athletes
and over the coming months, five more videos will be launched ahead of the Paralympic Games in Rio.
Speaking about the launch, CEO of Paralympics Ireland, Liam Harbison stated: “More Than Sport is a new awareness and fundraising initiative we’ve launched this year as we prepare for the Rio 2016 Games" “It’s an extremely exciting and inspirational campaign and we hope that the public will also get behind the text fundraising element of the campaign too in the coming months.”
The new awareness drive features some members of the 2016 Panel which was also unveiled today and comprises of 56 elite Irish athletes across 10 sports to include London 2012 medallists Michael McKillop and Jason Smyth. The full panel can be viewed here
