Over the past couple of days I’ve been letting my listeners know about the exploits of Australian Olympic Rowers, David McGowan and Ben Cureton, who decided to jump on a couple of bikes and ride from Kalgoorlie to Perth to raise money for Telethon. I interviewed David on air for my programme on Tuesday.
For those not from Western Australia, Telethon is an annual event run by local television station Channel 7. It raises money for children’s charities, mainly funding research into childhood ilness.
David and Ben wanted to do the 600 km in just 2 days. That’s a tough ask, even for elite sportsmen like they are.
I’ve cycled across Australia 5 times and the furthest I’ve ever ridden in a day is around 205 km.
They set off at 5 o’clock on Tuesday morning and they completed 300 km on their first day putting them on track. Yesterday I spoke to David when they were in Merredin around 9:20am.
David rang me again on my mobile at 5:00pm yesterday to say they’d arrived in Northam. They were about to head off to do their final 100 km into Perth.
I’m sure I’ll hear from them later today and I’ll let you know how it all went.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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Telethon is a world wide event I think.
We have it here as well, in Italy, and I’ve seen it on many other tv channels around the world.
We usually have charity auctions of items donated by famous people. A few years ago the main auction was a F1 Ferrari (just the body, of course!), but there were other less important auctions that brought equally important contributions.
I think it’s a great way to get people to contribute to a good cause.