British born gymnast Reiss Beckford has chosen to represent Jamaica at this month’s World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow in a bid to qualify for Rio 2016.
Beckford, 23, formerly of Kingsmead School in Enfield, took the decision to switch earlier this year from Great Britain to Jamaica to secure a place in these championships.
He travelled to Trinidad & Tobago to compete for a spot Jamaican team winning gold in the individual all-round competition.
Beckford has enjoyed a successful career with Great Britain winning medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Europeans, World Cups and other major competitions.
He said: “It was a tough decision giving up all the security of being part of the Great Britain team, losing lottery funding, private health care and the use of national training centres but I decided it was worth the chance of pursuing my dream of competing at an Olympics.”
Since the transfer Beckford has taken a part time job to help fund himself but is looking for some additional financial support.
He still trains for 30 hours a week and works the part time job around the training.
Beckford said: “At the moment without the support of my parents this journey would not be possible.”
He added: “I have had the dream of competing at an Olympic Games since the age of six and with your help and generous donations, I can achieve this dream and create history for Jamaica by becoming the first-ever Olympic Jamnast.”
If you want to support Beckford you can visit his Sponsorise.me page at uk.sponsorise.me/en/project-jamnast
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