British Cycling is pleased to report that the first 200 Flying Start bursaries have been awarded to young coaches in the past year.
The Flying Start bursary offers 70% off the cost of coaching courses, with the aim of diversifying the age of the coaching workforce. Just 5% of the cycling coaching workforce is under 30 and 500 bursaries were made available to tackle this statistic, with another 500 Ignite bursaries made available for women and girls.
One young coach, Alicia Linscott , said “The coaching course was brilliant and loads of fun, I didn’t even feel like I was learning as it was fantastically run. The bursary was great as it made it way more affordable.
Since doing my level 1 coaching I have regular beginner session every other Tuesday and every Saturday at Exeter Eagles BMX. This has helped me improve my coaching as the coach I have supported has been really helpful and let me lead off bike warm ups and flat techniques, including slaloms and corners”
British Cycling tutor, Simon Rickett, said “Tutoring the Flying Start program this year has been an inspiration. The young coaches have shown great enthusiasm for riding and shown ingenious ways of delivering the techniques on the Level 1 award. The mixture of disciplines and experiences in BMX, MTB and road has meant the candidates shared their knowledge and discussed similarities between their sports. With this Flying Start there is a great future for coaching cycling in the UK.“
British Cycling’s Education Delivery Manager, Robbie George, said “we set out big ambitions in our equality, diversity & inclusion strategy, Our Ride, to tackle diversity in our workforce, which included encouraging more young people to take up roles in cycling. We increased our bursary funding by £100,000 and are delighted with the uptake so far. These trainee young coaches represent a new wave of passionate, innovative and energetic coaches who will help transform cycling coaching, and hopefully will inspire more young people to get involved with coaching too.”
Course dates for 2022 are now live. Find out more information about the Flying Start bursary including upcoming course dates below.
