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This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

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Olympic athletes are going through what, for others, would seem like eternal suffering because they chose doing sports as a career path and it’s one that is not easy to go through. It requires a lot of physical endurance as well as mental. And of course, you have to have money to be able to use equipment, train and be able to compete in competitions.

But even lack of funds couldn’t stop the British BMX racer Bethany Shriever from going to the Olympics. The United Kingdom stopped funding the female BMX racers to put the money into preparing the male team, but Bethany found a solution and now she has a gold medal around her neck.

British BMX racer Bethany Shriever had to go to the Olympics on her own funds as the UK government did not spare finances for the female team

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

Image credits: bethanyshriever

Bethany Shriever is a 22-year-old British BMX racer who was invited to join the Olympic cycling squad. The problem is that preparing for the Olympics is very expensive and without government funding, this task is quite complicated.

After the 2016 Olympics, when none of the female riders qualified for the Games, the United Kingdom decided that the female riders would not be supported financially for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and that money would be invested only into the male team.

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

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Image credits: bethanyshriever

She launched a crowdfunding page and managed to collect the amount of money she needed to go to Tokyo

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

Image credits: PA

But the Olympics is every athlete’s dream and is considered the peak of their career, so Bethany saw a solution. She calculated how much it would cost to go to Tokyo to compete and launched a crowdfunding page back in 2019. Her parents helped her as much as they could and what is more, she worked as a teaching assistant in a nursery to reach the goal of collecting £50,000 ($70,000) needed to depart to Japan.

What makes this story even more impressive is that it wasn’t the only complication Bethany had to overcome. She has broken the same wrist three times and she had to recover from a tibia and fibula fracture that even needed insertion of metal plates into her leg. But she persevered and now she is an Olympic champion.

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

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Image credits: AP

And then she won the gold medal, proving that every difficulty can be overcome

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

Image credits: AP

She beat the two-time Olympic gold medal winner, Colombian Mariana Pajon, who was actually her idol. And now Bethany herself became an inspiration to many as she and her teammate Kye Whyte are Britain’s first BMX medalists.

Kye Whyte won a silver medal just ten minutes earlier and he told BBC, “I’m more happy for her than I am for me. That girl puts in some serious serious graft.”

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

Image credits: Reuters

It is a big win as she earned the first medal from BMX sports in British history

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

Image credits: PA

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Bethany told Sky News that she couldn’t completely comprehend what just happened: “It is still surreal. I haven’t had a chance to think about it, I haven’t had a chance to myself since the race. I’m over the moon.”

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It is truly quite surreal knowing the circumstances and it was a close finish—Bethany won by just 0.09sec. And she can be extra proud as she got there all by herself and the medal is certainly deserved.

People loved everything about Bethany’s story and felt that she very much deserved the win

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

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This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

This 22-Year-Old BMX Gold Medalist Had To Crowdfund Her Olympics Bid After Her Funding Was Cut To Support Male Riders

Jurgita Dominauskaitė

Having started as a content creator that made articles for Bored Panda from scratch I climbed my way up to being and editor and then had team lead responsibilities added as well. So it was a pretty natural transition from writing articles and titles as well as preparing the visual part for the articles to making sure others are doing those same tasks as I did before well, answering their questions and guiding them when needed. Eventually I realized editing gives me the most enjoyment and I'm focusing only on that right now.

Having started as a content creator that made articles for Bored Panda from scratch I climbed my way up to being and editor and then had team lead responsibilities added as well. So it was a pretty natural transition from writing articles and titles as well as preparing the visual part for the articles to making sure others are doing those same tasks as I did before well, answering their questions and guiding them when needed. Eventually I realized editing gives me the most enjoyment and I'm focusing only on that right now.

What do you think ?

Drew 3 years ago (edited)

The decision was made based on competition results, with the male team - at the time - looking more likely to pick up medals. Without an infinite pot of money, unfortunately, these are the kinds of tough decisions that need to be made. This article fails to mention that once Bethany's talent was recognised by the head of British Cycling, he persuaded UK Sport to reallocate funding and she was brought back into the team.

38points

Pat Bond 3 years ago

Great comment. A lot of errors in this article.

12points

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Wilf 3 years ago

Drew, you're not wrong, but you miss the point slightly. So long as money is allocated according to competition success, there is not much chance of DEVELOPING women's teams, which commonly are starting from a position of being secondary to men's. It's a funding trap that is holding many aspects of women's sport back. Money is necessary to encourage participation, and develop skills by paying for the best coaches, and indeed many other things that could take YEARS to be 'repaid' by success at international competitions.

4points

Hugo Raible 3 years ago

Don't destroy BP's fake outrage posts with facts ;)

3points

H Edwards 3 years ago

Thanks for this, I was about to get very mad lol

1point

Nicki 3 years ago

This is good to know, because my son and I were super confused, because she was so AWESOME!

0points

Grumble O'Pug 3 years ago

Yeah, fuuuuck british cycling.

0points

blugeagua 3 years ago

It's still messed up for them to just assume only the men would pick up medals. It basically dismisses the talent of women.

0points

pasti lopez 3 years ago

She has almost the same story with our Hidilyn Diaz(weight lifting) . The Ph Govt was not able to support her financially. So she trained with water jugs and transferred to another country. She was even accused of destabilizing the gov't. And now that they are both gold medalists. Politicians are quick to recognize them.

12points

Victorialovespandas 3 years ago (edited)

Out Of the 376 athletes selected for the Olympics, Team GB took 201 female and 175 male athletes. In 2 of the new sports introduced sport climbing and skateboarding we only have female representation. Bethany's funding cut was clearly ridiculous but as already mentioned UK sport did reallocate her funding. The way lottery funding is allocated is brutal but claiming its sexist is a stretch.

11points

Wilf 3 years ago

It's not deliberately sexist, but the current UK funding model has a greater negative impact on female participants in traditionally male-dominated sports. The impact is less felt in "new" Olympic sports where participants are starting on a more equal basis. The problem with the funding model is it often 'traps' female teams in a secondary position, because they don't get the money to DEVELOP. This is a problem across all UK sports, not just an Olympic issue. Women's football, for example, attracts a tenth of the revenue of the men's game. It also attracts less than 30 percent of the media coverage that the men's game gets too. Funding is the key to securing equity for female participation in many sports and the current UK Olympic model is at best unhelpful, and at worst, actually a barrier to progress.

0points

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Drew 3 years ago (edited)

The decision was made based on competition results, with the male team - at the time - looking more likely to pick up medals. Without an infinite pot of money, unfortunately, these are the kinds of tough decisions that need to be made. This article fails to mention that once Bethany's talent was recognised by the head of British Cycling, he persuaded UK Sport to reallocate funding and she was brought back into the team.

38points

Pat Bond 3 years ago

Great comment. A lot of errors in this article.

12points

Load More Replies...

Wilf 3 years ago

Drew, you're not wrong, but you miss the point slightly. So long as money is allocated according to competition success, there is not much chance of DEVELOPING women's teams, which commonly are starting from a position of being secondary to men's. It's a funding trap that is holding many aspects of women's sport back. Money is necessary to encourage participation, and develop skills by paying for the best coaches, and indeed many other things that could take YEARS to be 'repaid' by success at international competitions.

4points

Hugo Raible 3 years ago

Don't destroy BP's fake outrage posts with facts ;)

3points

H Edwards 3 years ago

Thanks for this, I was about to get very mad lol

1point

Nicki 3 years ago

This is good to know, because my son and I were super confused, because she was so AWESOME!

0points

Grumble O'Pug 3 years ago

Yeah, fuuuuck british cycling.

0points

blugeagua 3 years ago

It's still messed up for them to just assume only the men would pick up medals. It basically dismisses the talent of women.

0points

pasti lopez 3 years ago

She has almost the same story with our Hidilyn Diaz(weight lifting) . The Ph Govt was not able to support her financially. So she trained with water jugs and transferred to another country. She was even accused of destabilizing the gov't. And now that they are both gold medalists. Politicians are quick to recognize them.

12points

Victorialovespandas 3 years ago (edited)

Out Of the 376 athletes selected for the Olympics, Team GB took 201 female and 175 male athletes. In 2 of the new sports introduced sport climbing and skateboarding we only have female representation. Bethany's funding cut was clearly ridiculous but as already mentioned UK sport did reallocate her funding. The way lottery funding is allocated is brutal but claiming its sexist is a stretch.

11points

Wilf 3 years ago

It's not deliberately sexist, but the current UK funding model has a greater negative impact on female participants in traditionally male-dominated sports. The impact is less felt in "new" Olympic sports where participants are starting on a more equal basis. The problem with the funding model is it often 'traps' female teams in a secondary position, because they don't get the money to DEVELOP. This is a problem across all UK sports, not just an Olympic issue. Women's football, for example, attracts a tenth of the revenue of the men's game. It also attracts less than 30 percent of the media coverage that the men's game gets too. Funding is the key to securing equity for female participation in many sports and the current UK Olympic model is at best unhelpful, and at worst, actually a barrier to progress.

0points

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