Star hits cash hurdle
SHE’S LOOKING A BIT CHUBBY HERE DONCHA THINK? kk
May 12, 2006
BRONWYN Thompson was one of the feel-good stories of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and confirmed herself as one of the few Australian medal chances in athletics at the Beijing Olympics.
But the Commonwealth long jump champion still has no sponsorships two months after the series of jumps that left her ranked No. 1 in the world this year.
Thompson flew out of Brisbane yesterday to compete at the Doha Super Grand Prix meet in Qatar, one of several meets this year for which organisers have given her an expenses-paid invitation because of her 6.96m winning leap at the MCG in March.
The newlywed Queenslander, who had to rebuild her career after she suffered career-threatening leg injuries soon after her fourth placing at the 2004 Athens Olympics, does not even have a sports shoe sponsorship. Her agent, Andy Stubbs, is negotiating with manufacturers.
Thompson’s coach Gary Bourne said the extent of the misunderstanding of her financial backing became apparent recently when he was speaking to a high-ranking athletics official about his difficulty in getting time off work as a schoolteacher to assist the international campaigns planned for her in the next two years.
“He said: ‘Why don’t you use some of her sponsorship money?’ I replied that she doesn’t get any,” Bourne said.
"We don’t have many athletes in Australia who are potential Olympic gold-medal winners.
“Unless they can put together a support package to ensure she gets appropriate support, they put that whole thing at risk. I can’t comprehend that this new high-performance team at Athletics Australia can’t come to terms with that.”
Thompson has a Queensland Academy of Sport sponsorship and receives financial assistance from AA towards some travel to competitions and other expenses.
But she needed to fly home from a competition in Japan last Sunday to work three days as a physiotherapist at a Brisbane hospital before leaving to compete in Doha.
Thompson faces a crack field in Doha, headed by Russia’s 2004 Olympics gold medallist Tatyana Lebedeva and her countrywoman Oksana Udmurtova, who had a 6.86m jump last year.
Thompson said a two-month campaign in Europe, culminating in the World Cup in Athens in September, was essential to battle-harden her to stare down Russian and American rivals at next year’s world championships and the 2008 Olympics.
The first of these meets is in Cork, Ireland on July 1.
Thompson finished behind three Russians at the Athens Olympics but said: "I’ve really grown as an athlete in the past two years and I’m looking forward to not being intimidated by them. You always dream of Olympic gold medals and it’s my ultimate goal.
“A Swedish high jumper, Stefan Holm, finished 16th at his first Olympics, fourth at his second and won gold at his third. I’m hoping to keep my body together and win gold at my third in Beijing.”
Thompson finished second with a 6.70m jump in Osaka, Japan last Saturday behind Japan’s Kumiko Ikeda (6.86m) in her first competition since a honeymoon following her March 31 marriage to Jason Chipperfield in Brisbane.
“It was pretty good considering she lost a couple of weeks after the Games with her honeymoon and then went to Norway for a family wedding before coming home via Japan,” Bourne said.