British crowd-funding bobsleighers achieve dream of being selected for Winter Olympics
By Joe Shread
Last Updated: 23/01/18 3:51pm
Two female bobsleighers who appealed for crowd-funding donations to travel to the Winter Olympics discovered on Tuesday they had achieved their dream of being selected for Team GB.
Mica McNeill and Mica Moore set a crowd-funding target of £30,000 in September after being told there was only enough money to fund the men's team at the Pyeongchang Games in February. The duo achieved their target within six days.
More funds were then freed up by the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association following the departure of chief executive Richard Parker later that month.
Speaking after being named as part of a t10-strong team that will travel to South Korea, Moore said: "It's absolutely incredible. I can't wait to put the Team GB logo on my chest and compete for Great Britain. It's something I've only ever dreamed of.
"Aims when we get there? Just to perform to the best of our ability. We're very young but we're very driven and very determined to go out there and show what we're capable of."
McNeill paid tribute to the role the public have played in helping the pair achieve their aims, saying: "There was overspend and we had to suffer for it which ultimately meant we wouldn't be going to the Games.
"So we thought 'we can't let that stop us' and we reached out to the public and they really got behind us. They've got us standing here today."
The pair will be competing at their first Olympics, although McNeill is a Youth Olympic silver medallist, and the pair won the world junior title last year.
Britain are yet to win a medal since women's bobsleigh was added to the Winter Olympic programme at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
