British Airways is looking for British talent

I am the British number one Lady Pistol Shooter and I want a London 2012 Olympic medal. This is an awesome challenge in itself, but I have further difficulties to contend with.

One of the two Olympic events I compete in uses a .22 Pistol which is currently banned in the UK since Dunblane 1996. Therefore we are forced to not only compete, but train abroad too. This is task that British Shooters have had to contend with for the past 12 years and but has now been heightened further more due to the recent UK Sport funding in January. British Shooting was hit hard, with an 80% CUT in their allocated money for the four year lead up period to London, of what they had for Beijing. Consequently there are no funds to continue sending me abroad to train / compete and I am having to fund myself.

So how can I improve? How can I win an Olympic medal for my country.....in our very own capital City, if I can't even train? Trying to train Sport Pistol, the .22 Olympic shooting event at home with my Air Pistol is hopeless. The two guns are as different as chalk and cheese. I liken the situation Brisish Shooters are in to tennis. It is like me training with a Badminton racket at home and then going to Wimbledon and competing with a tennis racket......against Roger Federer!

Winning Great Britons would enable me to travel abroad to train and compete and help me stand on a more equal playing field with my fellow competitors. But more importantly be the lifeline to make my Olympic dream become reality.

I am a former Modern Pentathlete, who by the end of my first year at University at Cardiff (UWIC-studying Product Design) decided to concentrate on just the one disipline- shooting. I found life too complicated living away from home for the first time with all that entails, studying and training for five different events to the standard I wanted etc etc.
As my focus turned to shooting alone my improvement esculated and I was selected for the Commonwealth Games, Melbourne 2006 where I won a Bronze medal in the Air Pistol Pairs competition with my team mate Julia Lydall.
Graduating from my degree in the summer of 2007, my sights have be set to my ultimate dream-competing in and winning an Olympic medal, and what a location, our very own London! I have put my career on-hold to pursue my dream. I'm living and training back at home in Devon and juggling two part-time waitress / bar jobs down and riding neighbours horses, all around my training to try to fund my dream.
With this concentrated focus on the sport I love, having finished my degree, my journey to London is on-track. I have broken the British Record in both my events (the Air Pistol record had stood for 16 years!) and have begun this season with a very recognisable win in Pilsen CZE.
So here I am, career on-hold, fully commited to achieving my goal and reaching my destination-London 2012.