A 17-year-old from Upperthorpe, Sheffield, has fundraised the expenses to compete in the roller derby world cup in Australia.
Thomas Halsall plays for Sheffield Steel Junior Rollers and has played for Team GB since 2023, qualifying to compete at the sports highest level in Queensland in July.
He said: “I’m really really excited to get this opportunity to play for GB again. Once we got those results, I was very happy. It was quite a nice affirmation that, you know, you are good enough. You do know how to play the sport.”
Tom’s GoFundMe has raised over £2,280 from 60 donations.
Roller derby is a roller skating contact sport, where two teams ‘jam’ and ‘block’ their opponents to score points.
“It’s an absolutely great sport with a really lovely community surrounding it,” Tom said. “It’s just absolutely lovely.”
Tom started playing roller derby when he was eight years old and his roller derby name is Atomic_Bomb235.
The Rob George Foundation, which supports young sports athletes, gave him a grant of £500 for the Australia trip.
Tom said: “Looking at the numbers It was like, ‘oh no’, because it’s so much money just to get to Australia, let alone all the costs that you’ll incur like staying over and food and such.
“We were slightly anxious about being able to actually reach that goal, like do we actually think we can raise enough money for this?
“But I think with all the support that we’ve been getting, we should be able to.”
Tom regularly trains with two Sheffield adult roller derby teams, Sheffield Steel Roller Derby and The Inhuman League. He also attends team GB training sessions once a month and plays with teams across the country.
Tom played and won two international games against Team Sweden and Team Denmark over Easter weekend this year, and in 2023 he represented Great Britain at the junior world cup in France,
Tom’s fundraising efforts have received lots of media attention.
He said: “I don’t think I ever expected to be anywhere near any sort of news site. The interest and support has been incredibly helpful and is very, very nice because it means that people are actually interested in what I’m doing.”
Tom feels confident about Team GB’s chances.
He said: “I’m quite optimistic. I think we can probably do quite well, I think we have a good shot at outperforming last year.”
You can support Tom on GoFundMe here, and follow his Instagram to stay up to date.