Sailing duo turn to crowdfunding to finance Olympic qualifying campaign
She may have found a new partner, but Griselda Khng’s quest to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics faces another obstacle — funding.
She may have found a new partner, but Griselda Khng’s quest to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics faces another obstacle — funding.
The sailor, who made her Olympics debut in Rio this year in the 49erFX class, will link up with former netballer Olivia Chen, who has no sailing experience. Khng’s former partner, Sara Tan, quit to return to her studies.
But the new pairing will not be able to count on funding from the Sports Excellence Scholarship (spexScholarship), where candidates are assessed based on their potential to perform at major Games.
Khng and Chen are ineligible as they do not have any previous results. To cope, they will be launching a crowd-funding effort in December.
“The target is S$25,000 for now to start off with, so that we can afford the training camps in the first half of next year,” Khng, 25, told TODAY.
They will participate in regattas in the latter half of 2017 to gear up for the first round of qualifiers at the 2018 world championships.
Khng added that the average annual cost for sailors trying to qualify for the Olympics is around S$100,000, with the bulk of expenses coming from flights, accommodation, regatta and coaching fees. They will also be approaching private sponsors separately to raise more funds, while aiming to chalk up enough good results to fulfil spexScholarship criteria next year.
While Singapore Sailing will not be funding them, president Ben Tan told TODAY the federation will assist in linking them with potential sponsors.
Khng is determined to make things work as she wants improve on her 15th-place finish — out of 20 boats — in Brazil.
“Sailing has become such a major part of me and I love the competition,” she said. “To be honest, I wasn’t very happy with my results at the Games and I want to prove to everybody else that i can do much better than that.”
To get updates on their campaign, visit Griselda and Olivia’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GriseldaKhngOliviaChen. TEO TENG KIAT
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