Olympic hopefuls get off to cracking start, thanks to SKY and major Kiwi corporates

With the Olympics opening today, some of our best medal prospects have got their 2012 campaign off to a cracking start, thanks to the support of big business.

In addition to broadcasting around 23 hours a day of Olympics action on free-to-air channel Prime and unprecedented Olympic coverage in both standard definition and high definition on up to eight dedicated Olympic channels on SKY Sport, SKY is helping our Olympic hopefuls achieve their goals through its SportConnect programme.

SportConnect was devised by, and is run by Olympic gold medallist Hamish Carter and his wife Marisa to assist young athletes with much-needed funding so they can pursue their sporting careers and have a better shot at succeeding on the world stage.

“We’re delighted that 9 SportConnect athletes are representing New Zealand in London and that we have been able to assist them in focusing on their training without having to worry about where the money will come from,” says Hamish Carter.

SKY launched the programme in 2010 to their advertising partners.

“How it works is that premium advertisers on SKY can choose an athlete to support and SKY gives that athlete $20,000 a year to help with their training, equipment and costs of competing in international events,” says SKY’s head of corporate communications Kirsty Way.

“Currently we have 14 athletes and advertisers partnered in the programme, but we’d love to see that number grow, I think the biggest barrier we face from advertisers is ‘it’s too good to be true’, but it’s not. We see SKY as the home of NZ sport and this is one way we are giving back”, says Way.

The Carters help match up the athletes to the advertisers and Hamish says the programme works extremely well.

“I used to struggle to get from race to race on the other side of the world.  Finances are always a challenge and coming from New Zealand you have to travel long distances to compete at world class events. SportConnect bridges a gap and also provides companies and their staff with an inspiring journey to follow.”

Supported SportConnect athletes who are participating at the 2012 London Olympics are:

• Ryan Sissons, Triathlete, corporate partner Kellogg’s Nutri-grain and SKY
• Lisa Carrington, Kayaker, ASB and SKY
• Erin Taylor, Kayaker, GJ Gardner and SKY
• Penelope Marshall, Swimmer, BNZ and SKY
• Sophie Pascoe, Paralympics Swimmer, Westpac and SKY
• Sisters Sam and Charlotte Harrison, Womens Hockey, Rebel Sport and SKY
• Marc Willers, BMX, Burger King and SKY
• Sam Webster, Track Cyclist (first reserve), ANZ and SKY

Way says SKY is supporting the Olympics in other ways too. “In association with the NZ Olympic Committee, we are providing regional sports organisations around the country with public live viewing sites during the course of the Games.”

This means the organisations get free SKY feeds which they are using to promote a variety of sports at various events in community locations.

SKY has also extended its Olympic rights to provide Scott Base, Antarctica with its Olympic coverage and has worked with the International Olympic Committee to enable the broadcast of the Olympics across Pacific Island nations including: Palau, Kiribati, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Fiji. Fiji will in turn provide coverage to more island nations.