Since eBay was founded in 1995 it has been very successful and people will seemingly sell anything on the online auctioning website. Today we can reveal that one of Great Britain’s Olympic sprinters has turned to eBay in an attempt to seek sponsorship.
James Ellington is a decorated 100m, 200m and relay sprinter, however due to a serious injury he missed the opportunity to secure a major sponsor. Despite the previous injury and the lack of finances he has just finished his best-ever season by setting a season’s best time for running 200m faster than any other British athlete this year at a non-altitude venue.
James has set his reserve at £30,000 and this pays him a £15,000 wage and covers expenses such as travel, accommodation, kit and nutrition, in return he will wear the sponsor’s branded kit at “every possible opportunity where appropriate, including at training and press events, until after the 2012 Games”.
We first heard about this roughly two hours ago as it was retweeted by someone that we follow on Twitter, originally we didn’t think much of the idea as he was only bid roughly £500, however at the time of posting this article he had received a bid of £4,100 – the listing still has over 9 days to go, so it looks like if it finishes as well as it started he should have secured the sponsorship he needs ahead of the 2012 games.
Currently to pay for his expenses he has been coaching under-privileged kids in South East London, however with roughly 233 days until the 2012 Olympic Games kicks off he ideally needs to train round-the-clock like his rivals.
You can check out the eBay listing for yourself here, we will post an update on the situation when the auction ends, hopefully he reaches his reserve!
Please use social networking to spread the word about James’ auction, why not share this page on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ it will only take a few seconds of your time and could make his dreams reality.
*Identifying Monetised Links - outgoing links that we monetise are marked with an '*' symbol, or (AD). Also, prices and information correct at publish time and date.
