British sprinter James Ellington fears the £32,500 anonymous eBay sponsorship bid was just a 'sad hoax’
British sprinter James Ellington fears he may have been the victim of a hoax after an anonymous bidder pledged £32,500 on the eBay website to sponsor him between now and the London Olympics.
By Simon Hart
11:00PM GMT 04 Jan 2012
The south Londoner made headlines across the world when he came up with the novel idea of auctioning himself online to raise money for hisOlympic campaign, and the stunt appeared to have paid off when he attracted a top bid that was £2,500 higher than his £30,000 reserve.
But, since the auction closed on Dec 17, the winning bidder has failed to come forward and attempts by eBay to track the individual down have proved fruitless. A spokeswoman for the website admitted that the bidder “doesn’t appear to be bona fide”.
Ebay is now attempting to contact some of the other leading bidders but has yet to establish whether any of them is genuine.
“There seem to be a few sad people out there,” said Ellington, who had offered to wear the winner’s branded kit in exchange for the sponsorship money he needs for training and travel, kit and basic living expenses in the run-up to London 2012.
“For me personally, I wouldn’t be missing about with someone’s career but there are certain people out there who like to mess things up.
“I’ve spoken to the guys at eBay and they say they are still trying to get in touch with the highest bidder, but they are finding it difficult and they are not sure whether the top bids may be people just messing around.
“They’re just checking out whether the bids are genuine. They haven’t got to the bottom of it yet so I’m still waiting to find out what’s going on, which is a bit frustrating.
“It obviously concerns me because it was for a good cause and it’s a serious thing that I’m doing. If people have been bidding just to mess about, then it’s annoying but hopefully there are some genuine bids there.”
After the 10-day auction closed in December, Ellington told Telegraph Sport that he “couldn’t be happier” with the result, saying he planned to use some of the money to fund a warm-weather training camp in Florida.
He added that he hoped to scale back on some of his coaching commitments to dedicate himself to his goal of a top-two finish in the 200 metres final at the Olympic trials in Birmingham in June to book his place at London 2012. But on Wednesday he insisted he would not allow himself to be distracted by the latest setback and that he remained hopeful a sponsor would still come forward.
“Throughout my life I’ve had so many let-downs that I never count my chickens before they hatch,” he said. “I was just optimistic and thought to myself, 'If I get the money then I get the money. If I don’t, I won’t even focus on it.’ I’m just trying to get on with things and focus on my training. If you get too engrossed in everything it can just eat you up, so I’m just trying to keep my head down, keep training and focus on my goal. Hopefully, something will come through and I’ll get some sponsorship.
“If it doesn’t come through, then I would have to look at other ways to try to raise the money. A lot of private people have contacted us, so if eBay doesn’t work, we may be able to sort something out.”
Ellington, 26, receives around £11,000 in Lottery cash as a “podium relay” athlete but missed out on individual funding after long-standing injury problems.
He is now fully fit and has already run the 200m Olympic qualifying 'A’ standard after clocking 20.52sec in Metz in June. He is due to open his 2012 campaign in a 400m race at the South of England Indoor Championships at Lee Valley, north London, on Jan 15.
An eBay spokeswoman said: “It’s unfortunate that this top bidder doesn’t appear to be bona fide. We are a trading platform and ultimately we need people to play by the rules.
“It’s pretty rare and I’m confident that James will still get some sponsorship out of this. He’s obviously had tremendous publicity from just being on eBay, so I think the outcome for him will be a good one.”