European champion powerlifter Mark Swan, who receives Sport England funding via SportsAid, has been named the charity’s One-to-Watch athlete following a stellar year.
Mark, 21, led a one-two-three of athletes from our Backing the Best scheme, which sees financial awards administered to talented young athletes by SportsAid, as para-athlete Emmanuel Oyinbo-Coker was named as runner-up and rhythmic gymnast Marfa Ekimova took third.
The award recognises the achievements of Britain’s brightest young sporting prospects, with previous winners including Tom Daley, Hollie Arnold, Courtney Tulloch and Alex Yee.
In total, the previous winners have amassed more than 50 senior Olympic, Paralympic, world, European and Commonwealth medals between them, with Mark adding to that tally with his European gold and Commonwealth silver in the -65kg and lightweight categories, respectively.
He’s also won world junior gold this year and knows how much the support from SportsAid has contributed to his successes.
“It means a lot to me,” he said at last week’s ‘Supporting the Next’ ceremony in London. “To have the backing from SportsAid, it just gave me the great opportunity to maximise what I can at the minute and push me to where I am now.
“Having this now, coming down and meeting the team behind SportsAid, meeting them face-to-face and speaking to them, it’s given me a lot more motivation now to push forward as a SportsAid-funded athlete.
“I want to try and push the charity forward and show that they’re doing such a great thing in helping young athletes such as myself.
“There’s more motivation than there ever has been – at Paris 2024 I’m going to really try and get that gold medal.”
Mark’s win makes in a hat-trick of Backing the Best winners of the award, following boxer Caroline Dubois in 2018 and para-swimmer Ellie Challis the following year.