Eversheds Sutherland to support Irish athletes off the track

Alan Murphy

Patience Jumbo-Gula, Rhasidat Adeleke, Sarah Healy and Sophie O’Sullivan will participate in the new Accelerator Academy, which will support them in their non-athletic pursuits.

Alan Murphy, managing partner at Eversheds Sutherland Ireland, said: “Patience, Rhasidat, Sarah and Sophie are enormously talented and are clearly focused on reaching the highest level of sporting achievement.

“Through the Academy we want to play our part in supporting these young athletes to thrive on and off the track. Through work experience placement, career coaching and financial support we hope that our contribution will help these young athletes to develop a set of useful life skills and experiences while pursuing their sporting dreams.

“At Eversheds Sutherland we have a culture of high performance and we care about our talented employees having a good work life balance. We have a range of programmes in place to encourage staff to keep that balance and that’s what makes this partnership with the Academy such a natural fit for us.”

Sonia O’Sullivan said: “I know from personal experience just how difficult it can be to keep a healthy balance between sporting activities and non-sporting ones when you’re striving to compete at the highest level.

“It’s so important to have a support structure for athletes that develops the person on and off the track. That’s what this Academy is designed to do and we are very grateful to Eversheds Sutherland for providing the financial support to help this project come to life.”