I would like to thank the Inspire team for awarding me a grant towards costs of international boat wakeboard competitions. Boat wakeboarding is a very expensive sport, but as a non-Olympic sport there is also very little funding available, making me all the more grateful for schemes like this.

After a season that bought much success last year, including a bronze medal at the IWWF European and African Championships, I am looking forward to what this season will hold. Although the lake where I ride does not open until April, I am working hard in the gym with a personal trainer and swimming competitively to build fitness and strength for the coming season.

I will be training nearly every day once the season starts, as well as coaching at the club throughout the season, mainly on a voluntary basis, because I feel it is important to give back to the sport, and help its future.

This season, I have several plans for competition season this year:

I intend to enter two national ranking UK competitions, as well as a few others I have not cemented into the calendar yet. The Nautique Wake Open and the Nationals are both used for national rankings, which are added up at the end of the season and help the Wakeboard UK committee decide who will make the GB squad the following year. As I am previously undefeated at the Wake Open, and have a total of seven national titles, I hope to win both of these events.

As far as international competitions are concerned, I already have plans to attend the IWWF European and African championships, which are in Ukraine this year, where I hope to make the podium, if I can improve enough, hopefully improving on my placement from last year! I would also like to enter a World Championships, of which there are two federations for: IWWF and WWA. In the UK, the IWWF's is the competitions are the ones which go towards rankings, and therefore squad selection. The date for this has not yet been announced, so I am excited to see where this may be.

Once again, I would like to say a big thanks to Inspire for this award.