UK Edition
Meet the young men and women hoping to form the next generation of British sports stars
Every four years, the Sky Academy Sports Scholarship provides financial support, mentoring and work experience to ten of Britain and Ireland’s hopeful young sportsmen and women to help them progress to global level.
“The idea is to make a difference to athletes coming through the pipeline,” says Tony Lester, Sky Scholarship leader. “We are doing our best to support the next British star.”
Ben Bloom caught up with four of them.
Emily Appleton
18, Tennis
This year has been great. I started off really well winning the Coffee Bowl in Costa Rica, which has been won by people like Roger Federer, Madison Keys and Ivan Lendl, so that was really exciting. That win put me in the world top 10 and since then I’ve made the quarter-finals at the Australian Open juniors and played at all four grand slams.
I only made it to the second round at Wimbledon but winning a match in front of my home crowd was really special. I had so many friends and family there to support me and had to come through in three sets, so it was tough but very special.
Getting into the world top 10 meant I received wildcards to tournaments on the women's circuit, which is a nice boost to start my senior career. Tennis has a notoriously tough transition from junior to senior, but you just have to accept that the journey is slow and there will be lows that come with the highs. My junior eligibility comes to an end in December so I won't play any more juniors now - I'll just be playing women's tennis. The aim is just to get my ranking as high as possible. Hopefully I can be top 400 or 500 by the end of next year and after that I'll set another goal.
Tennis is an incredibly costly sport - just this week I’ve been out competing in Argentina - so having Sky helping me out with some of those costs is great. If I can start travelling more with my coach and try to get a full-time fitness coach that should be really beneficial for me.
Joe Fraser
19, Gymnastics
My junior career was pretty successful with all-around gold at the 2015 European Youth Olympics, but stepping up to the seniors is the biggest transition in a gymnast’s career. My coaches set me a target going into this year to break into the senior British team and ensure that my team-mates didn’t still look at me as a junior. To have won all-around gold at the British Championships and put my little stamp on the senior stage it is unbelievable. No one thought I would do as well as I have.
Last year I was lucky enough to head out to the Rio Olympics to watch a couple of events as part of the British Olympic Association’s Ambition Programme. I got to see Max Whitlock compete in the all-around final, where he won bronze to add to his two gold medals. It was unbelievable for us to watch and it’s just made all of us work that bit harder now because we all want a piece of the pie.
Competing on the senior stage is crazy because you're up against people you've idolised your entire life. You’re stood shoulder to shoulder with them and they don't see you as a junior - you're seen as a competitor.
Next year the Commonwealth Games is my main target, but there's also the chance to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games, so that's our main focus as a nation. At this stage I'm not getting preoccupied with thinking about medals. If they come then they come. When I won the British Championships I received a brand new Honda Civic as a prize. I had only passed my test six months beforehand and had a little old car, but now I have a nice new one for the year, which is great. I only have it for a year though, so it's an incentive for me to try and win it again.
Sammi Kinghorn
21, Wheelchair racing
I had my accident in 2010 [Sammi broke her back at her family's farm] but it wasn’t until three years later that I was officially classified as a T53 para-athlete and started taking things seriously. Up to that point I had just been competing around Scotland and hadn't really thought much about what classification I was. Then when I was put in the T53 category I suddenly became British No 1, so it all moved quite quickly from there. After that you kind of realise this could be a career and not just a hobby.
Rio was my first experience of the Paralympics and I loved it. I didn’t come home with a medal, but I finished exactly where I was ranked to come and I'm really happy with the whole experience. I remember watching the girls that I'd competed against up on the podium and thinking: ‘That will be me next time'.
Last winter involved a lot of hard work - especially improving my start - and I got a new racing chair because my position wasn't that aerodynamic. Going into the London World Championships I was hopeful that I could win 200m gold because I had broken the world record, but to double up in the 100m was a real surprise. That experience has helped me a lot mentally because now I know I'm as good as the other girls. I'm still the youngest on the startline and the novice who hasn't been doing it quite as long, but now I know I'm able to beat them.
My race chair alone costs £6,500 and it's hard for para-athletes to get funding and sponsorship so when I saw the Sky thing I thought it was a great opportunity to get myself noticed. Everything for me now is building to Tokyo 2020. The Paralympics is the biggest event of my life - it's a dream. To be Paralympic champion really would mean everything.
Molly Thompson-Smith
19, Indoor climbing
The last year or so has been a big learning experience for me. I did very well in the juniors but I had a pretty hard year and after doing A-Levels, training and competing I needed a break so I took a year out. I had planned on going travelling all around Asia and Australia from January to August, but I actually ended up coming home in April because I missed training and competing too much. I was in Japan when I had that realisation that I wanted to come home. It was sad to leave, but I was ready.
I think I needed the break to appreciate how much climbing meant to me and decide whether I just wanted to enjoy the social lifestyle part of climbing. It made me realise that competing is what I really want to do - I can enjoy the outside, but I'm super competitive so I'm made for the competitions.
Since I got back I've been climbing full time. I was supposed to start university this year but my climbing is going so well that I'd like to take another year of being a professional. I made my first senior World Cup final in Italy a few weeks ago, which was pretty cool because I was the first British climber to do that for 13 years.
A lot of people drop out of the sport when it comes to starting out in the senior ranks because the support disappears, so Sky will help a lot financially to allow me to go to Europe and train with the best facilities. The immediate goal is to consistently make senior World Cup finals and progress towards Tokyo 2020, when climbing will be in the Olympics for the first time.
My first experience climbing was on my seventh birthday party and it was so much fun - to think I could potentially go to the Olympics and make a career out of the sport is amazing.