The Bonitas Girls Triathlon Team is born
June 4th, 2008 by Nikola Tosic
TriCape.com/bonitas-girls-triathlon-team
I wanted to start this journal by introducing ourselves as the Bonitas Girls Triathlon Team and thanking our very generous sponsor Bonitas Medical Fund. Qualifying to take part in world champs is only part of the challenge – the other challenge is affording the cost of the trip to take part in Worlds. The general cost of taking part in Triathlon is quite high. The equipment, nutrition, entry fees, transport to qualifying events, coaching and physio etc all adds up and many sacrifices need to be made financially in order to take part in this sport.
Growing up without even being able to afford a bike as a kid reminds me constantly how fortunate we are to be able to support ourselves in a sport that is quite expensive unfortunately the better you get the more it costs….
This is where Bonitas helped take away our burden by sponsoring our trip to take part it triathlon worlds Vancouver Canada. When we ladies initially met we decided to approach a business as a group and attempt to get sponsorship this way allowing our sponsor team exposure where we could be a bigger force. Sponsorship is often referred to by athletes as the holy grail…we all want it we all need it but it seems almost impossible to find..
I was pleasantly surprised – having previously attempted to attract sponsors and being unsuccessful I had a heavy heart. However being part of a force of initially five ladies seemed to help get the positive energy alive and as Martha says “energy begets energyâ€
There was not much time between selection and commitment to participate and we were required to pay large deposits to secure our places on the team – it was a long shot - a gamble, we had to just put our heads down and expect the best. Nothing had been confirmed and we had to part and possibly lose a large sum of money if we were not able to find the balance of the funds for our trip. Sadly two of the ladies decided not to take the risk and being the gracious ladies that they are decided to focus on other priorities and races… then there were three…
Martha, Sarah and I decided to take the risk …… and it paid…
Thank you Bonitas Medical Fund for helping us realize our dream…. We feel very special being a part of your team and having your confidence behind us – this has taken the pressure off us financially and allowed us to be positive and focus our energies on training and bringing you the best results possible…
