Claire Kelly’s Unique Plan To Make It To The London Olympic Games

If you want it, go for it

Australian beach volleyball player Claire Kelly is determined to be in the London Olympic games. How determined? She is willing to sell space on her body for tattoos  to willing sponsors. You know, kind of like NASCAR drivers do with their cars. Only Kelly’s will be permanent, and on her not a car.

She has come up with prices for specified amounts of space. The Herald Sun has the details:

For $10,000 you can have a 2cm x 2cm piece of Kelly’s toned and tanned left limb, while $50,000 buys 5cm x 5cm on her right arm or shoulder. There are other … um, packages, for between $10,000 and $50,000 and an eBay auction.

The money raised will pay for Kelly and her teammate, Carla Kleverlaan, to enter the International Beach Volleyball Tour. If they are successful in joining they would have to participate in a minimum of twelve events to qualify for the London games. Claire has jokingly given her effort a name, the”London Olymp-ink” campaign. Catchy and I approve of the play on words.

When asked why she chose this as a way of raising money for the tour Kelly said:

“It’s taken me months to get the courage to do this and now I’m going through with it. I was thinking, ‘Tattoo my body with a business logo just so I can have a chance to play for my country at the Olympics? I’m crazy!”

“This is my dream and it seems crazy not to try to do something to realize the dream. We need to head off on the world tour before the end of July, we need financial backing, so I can’t let fear stop me.”

“The tattoos signify having the courage to have a crack at something bigger, having the guts to at least try.”

The Olympics only come around once every four years and are quite the big deal for an athlete. While I can’t say I would do this, I do applaud Claire Kelly for doing whatever it takes to achieve her dream of Olympic glory. According to Claire’s blog, her and Carla need to raise between $20,000 – $50,000 by July 8th. That would cover their flights and accommodation for this season.

To come up with that amount of money it would seem she will need quite a bit of ink. Hopefully it won’t be enough to make her regret the decision after she’s gone through with it. From the sounds of it, it doesn’t appear she would. An interesting story of guts and determination to say the least. Her blog post is worth a read as she’s carefully and methodically thought through the process. I wish her luck in her quest and hope to see her and Carla in London next year.