This sporting journey has been a roller-coaster with many highs and lows so far for team Chris Gregory & Jake Sheaf
Jake and I embarked on this together knowing full-well the challenges we’d face. Career threatening injuries had been something to overcome and maintain for us both, as well as heart surgery with an on-going arrhythmia problem, and personal financial struggles, along with team ones would only be the start.
Not being UK Sport funded, we knew we had to find a way:
After a first year in 2014, we surpassed even our own expectations achieving beyond anything we could have asked for: Placing 36th in the World Beach Volleyball Season Rankings, winning Round 1 of Olympic qualification and above all, qualifying a place for Team GB in Beach Volleyball at the European Games, it put us in a legitimate position to try and qualify for Rio 2016 over the next 2 years..
Unfortunately all that we have worked for is on the verge of collapse at the most crucial stage.
We are still working to try and find a headline sponsor for the Olympic Beach Volleyball qualification period from now until June 22nd, 2016. However, time is running out.
With the help of the community, (who have already shown great support to us whilst we’ve been competing abroad) and partners who would join our campaign there is still hope in continuing on what has been built to date.