Warrior Fionnuala Toner receives Achievement Award from The GLL Sport Foundation (GSF)

On Tuesday Evening, The GLL Sport Foundation (GSF) celebrated our some of the city’s most promising sporting talent who received bursaries at the GLL Sport Foundation awards in Belfast City Hall. 124 sporting stars in Belfast have been awarded bursaries worth over £75,000 by social enterprise GLL to help them pursue their sporting ambitions.

The GLL Sport Foundation (GSF) is the largest independent athlete support programme in the UK and supports gifted young athletes, many of whom rely on these bursaries alone to compete at national and international levels.

Local recipients in Belfast this year included 124 individuals, 74% of whom receive no other central funding towards their sporting journey and rely heavily on the support to meet the costs of competing. Of this, 60 recipients are aged under 21 while, 25 are aged under 16.

Netball NI Warrior Fionnuala received an achievement award, the 2nd highest level of award that The GLL Sport Foundation (GSF) offer.

She sat on a Q&A panel with Aidan Walsh, Shirley McCay and Adam Keefe (Belfast Giants coach) who all discussed what it takes to be the best in their sport, how they managed the balance between work and sport as an athlete, and the mental health challenges of sport. They all provided a great insight and gave some great advice to the young upcoming sports stars in the room.

Fellow NI Warrior and Commonwealth Games athlete Georgie McGrath also received the Top Up award (3rd level).

Congratulations to Fionnuala and Georgie, from everyone within the Netball NI family.