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Tim's Business is
keeping Welsh Athletes on Track
October 2006
Graduate Tim Wallis has turned his passion for
athletics into a business, which manages some of Great Britain's brightest
athletes.
Tim, 21, set up RUNeuropean, a Cardiff based
independent sports management company specialising in the management and
organisation of elite and developing athletes, five months ago and is delighted
with its progress.
The company provides athletes with a variety of
services to help them further their athletics careers. Apart from securing
sponsorship deals, Tim also finds and books them races across Europe and takes
care of all the arrangements, so that all the athletes need to do is turn up to
race.
Already signed up with the company are Richard
Hill, British number one at 800 metres, David Greene, Welsh 400 metres hurdles
junior record holder who finished second at the combined AAA Championships and
European Trials and John McFall, silver and bronze medallist for the 100 metres
and 200 metres sprints in the T42 category at this year's World Disability
Championships in Assen.
Both Hill and Greene, who are sponsored by Adidas,
competed for Britain at this summer's European Championships in Gothenburg.
To prepare all three athletes for the Olympic Games
in Beijing in 2009, Tim is now planning a programme of top class races for them
in the United States against the world's best runners next year.
He already knew all three athletes before setting
up his business, as they were fellow students at the University of Wales
Institute Cardiff, from where he graduated with a degree in sports science and
exercise. A steeplechaser himself, he is still fired by a personal ambition to
win a place in the GB team and continues to train with the athletes in Cardiff
under the guidance of top coach Darrell Maynard, with whom he works
closely.
"RUNeuropean has really taken off this summer
because my three athletes have been running so well," said Tim. "My aim is to
sign up as many high class athletes as possible, so that I can grow the business
and create additional jobs.
"I only want to manage athletes who show potential
and are willing to work hard to achieve success. I provide everything an athlete
could need both in and out of competition.
"I had always decided that I was going to work in
athletics somewhere and running this business, which I believe is the only one
of its type in Wales, is a dream come true. Most of the other sports management
companies with Welsh athletes on their books are based in London or
Loughborough.
"My aim is to cover Wales and South West England,
based on the large sports universities at UWIC and Bath, identifying talented
athletes who have the potential to be world class."
Tim launched RUNeuropean with mentoring support
from the Welsh Assembly Government's Graduating to Enterprise (G2E) programme
and continues to seek guidance and advice from mentor Fiona Neeson.
"The support from G2E has been a great because it
helps to talk things through with someone like Fiona, who is very knowledgeable
about how business works," he explained. "G2E puts you in touch with
professional people who can really make a difference.
"More than anything else it has given me the
confidence to set up a business, knowing the support is there if I need
it.
G2E is part of the Knowledge Exploitation Fund, a
programme designed to transfer skills and research knowledge gained at colleges
and universities in Wales to industry.
The flexible G2E programme is tailored to meet the
individual needs of aspiring entrepreneurs by providing free mentoring and
specialist consultancy support from business experts.
For more information about the G2E programme
contact 0845 601 0505 or visit www.g2e.co.uk.
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