Press

Holl and Lane Magazine. May 2016

We are very privileged to be in the celebration edition of Holl and Lane. Here is our lovely article and a link to the magazine - http://www.hollandlanemag.com/

Paper.ie #OLYMPICS . DEC 2015

We are happy to see that our round up features in the Paper.ie Olympic section. Check us, and many other interesting reads, here!

The Pool UK. May 2015

We're really excited to be featured in an article on the excellent Pool UK!

You can read more here!

Spogo: The Sport and Fitness Finder. June 2014

We're really pleased to be featured on the Spogo website! We chat about our Challenge so far, as we rapidly approach the halfway point!

Read more here - https://spogo.co.uk/blog/post/Inspired-by-London-2012  

Women's Fitness Magazine. June 2014

After an interview back at the start of the year we are in the June edition of Women's Fitness Magazine.

WI Magazine. March 2014

We're really pleased with our feature in the March edition of the WI magazine! The article mentions that other WI members joined us for our Volleyball event; for the record, it was actually Basketball!

Running Fitness Magazine. 7 February 2014

Running Fitness Magazine were so taken with Georgia-May's article from the end of last year that they decided to publish it in their March edition. Our first national press!

 
 Georgia-May Collings Interview. 14 December 2013

In December we spent a very nice morning being interviewed by Journalism student Georgia-May Collings and we're really happy to be able to share with you below the resulting article written for her course work. We'd like to stress that neither Georgia-May nor Tony Boyd were paid any amount of money for their kind words!

After a Summer of games makers, glory and gold medals, the 2012 Olympics left London high on the promise that a legacy would be set to 'inspire a nation'. A year on and it certainly seems to have left its mark on two women who are embarking on a challenge of Olympic-sized proportion, Georgia-May Collings finds out more.

Sitting in the corner of a cafe in Colchester, sipping on smoothies and watching the rest of the world rush by, you wouldn't be blamed for mistaking Ellie Farrow and Sarah Clementson for two normal women. Granted this is what they are, yet the task they face couldn't be any further from normal. Like many, the pair were inspired by London 2012 and decided they would put their hand to trying something new. But attempting just one sport wasn't enough, nor two or three for that matter. In fact, the two friends decided they would try all 114 events available to women before the Rio 2016 games. So what was it that motivated two women who confess to not exactly being the overly sporty type to try every singly Olympic discipline?

'I really didn't expect to enjoy the Olympics as much as I did' admits Ellie. 'When it all finished I just thought, Oh... then Sarah and I started talking about it and that's where it all started. You could believe it if we were in the pub and had a few drinks but it wasn't like that at all. We had the conversation in the afternoon and decided then we were doing it!'

She recalls the moment she first became hooked on the games: 'I was at the gym, the TV was on and Chad Le Clos had just won the 200m butterfly. I was transfixed. I probably spent more time in the changing room watching him than I did in the gym.'

Since starting the challenge back in September 2012, they have managed to cross 37 events off their list and aim to have two more completed before the year is up. Both work full time jobs, Ellie in a music venue and Sarah as a Charity worker do finding time to complete all of the sports is equally a challenge within itself.

'We use our evenings and weekends plus Sarah is an excellent planner and there is a lot of sports Excel spreadsheets involved' grins Ellie. 'A lot of clubs run on a Tuesday or Thursday night so we have a huge backlog of evenings booked up. We have been trying our best to visit all the golden postboxes and other Olympic stadiums. You could quite easily have this as a full-time job, someone needs to sponsor us' she laughs. 'A lot of clubs offer us free or massively reduced prices so it hasn't been too expensive. The whole challenge is self-funded and we only need petrol to get places.'

In order to keep on schedule the duo aim to complete 40 events per year. On top of this some events require additional training before they can be properly ticked off the list as they want their attempts to reflect the Olympic disciplines as accurately as possible. With so many disciplines to try it was almost inevitable that they would fall in love with at least one sport.

Sarah says:'I loved Hockey which was surprising as I'd done it at school but I hated it so I presumed I wouldn't like it. After a training session we played in a league match and it was amazing, we got really caught up in it. So far that's the one I'd like to join after. I do running and badminton but I'd never been too adventurous. This has definitely pushed us into trying new sports.'
Staying true to their Essex roots, the pair are trying to complete every sport within the county in a bid to prove that there is a variety of clubs to try all within close proximity.

Tony Boyd from Colchester Judo Club who helped the ladies tick the martial art of their list said he hadn't heard of anything like their challenge before. Tony has been coaching Judo since 1989 and still competes at local and national level.

He said: 'Both Ellie and Sarah were full of enthusiasm, keen to learn, take part and do well from the outset. This is a huge enormity to event think of taking on. It's not something that can be done easily and takes a lot of grit, time and determination.'

The girls stress how they want to understand the rules of each discipline and what the body has to go through rather than just mindlessly doing each sport. Certainly if anyone is doing their bit to carry on the legacy of the London games it is these two.

'Inspire a generation is a brilliant idea, if people like us can do this just through watching the Olympics then imagine the children watching, they could become elite athletes' says Ellie. 'I hope that by doing what we're doing there are other women out there who think why can't I do that? Unless you've been into sport since you were young it's quite intimidating, especially for women. Everyone we've met has been so encouraging; they love their sport and want others to too. There needs to be a drive for promoting sport, but also women's sport.'
So with 39 sports in the process of being completed before 2014, what happens when all 114 are finished?

'We're planning on having a big party when we're finished. The Olympics ends on the 4x100m relay so we're keeping that until the end and are going to invite everyone who has helped us to put together a 4x100m team and all race. The thought of the party at the end though really does keep us going.'

Certainly in this case the phrase 'life is a marathon not a sprint' resonates.



BBC Essex Radio Interview. 3 December 2013

We were thrilled to be invited along to the BBC Essex studio to chat to Mark Punter about our Challenge. Have a listen below if you'd like to hear our radio debut!



USA Blogs. November 2013

We were really surprised to get a text from a friend saying that she'd just read about us on an American blog site! The story was then picked up on a few other blogs, resulting in loads of hits from the USA, which is crazy (in a good way!).

The Frisky called us "kickass women of the day"!: http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-10-31/kickass-women-of-the-day-these-two-ladies-are-diy-ing-the-summer-olympics/

We're definitely up for the finishing medals The Mary Sue mentions: http://www.themarysue.com/two-woman-olympics/

We really like that HyperVocal picked out some of our remaining events: http://hypervocal.com/culture/2013/women-114-olympics-events/

Essex Chronicle. 24 October 2013

We're so happy with having another article out in Essex. It's good to spread the word at different stages of our challenge!

The same article was then picked up on This Is Total Essex: http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/Missing-Olympics-Chelmsford-duo-tries-single/story-19975764-detail/story.html#axzz2jBz1zAjT

Essex County Standard. 13 September 2013

 Here's another article recently featured in the local press. It might not be all about sport but it's always on our minds!

Colchester Gazette. 1 July 2013

We had our first feature in print this month with a full page article in our local paper. We'd actually arranged for the photographer to come along to one of our boxing lessons in the park, but we got drenched in a downpour. Luckily there was a gym right next door with a spare boxing ring which suited the pictures perfectly!

SportSister. 23 May 2013

Ellie recently met Lizzie from SportSister at the Go Spike! Beach Volleyball event in Crystal Palace (write-up here!).
Lizzie has written a lovely feature on our challenge, have a read here:

http://www.sportsister.com/2013/05/23/events-week-sarah-and-ellie-do-the-olympics/