British Triathlete Dixon Receives Sir John Hanson Scholarship
Team England have welcomed on Northumberland-based British triathlete, Daniel Dixon, to the Sir John Hanson Young Talent Scholarship programme as he joins four other athletes.
The Sir John Hanson Scholarship was launched back in 2019 and provides funding and support to five young athletes on their journeys to strive to compete for Team England at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
The TriNation Podcast Ep18 – Daniel Dixon
Dixon, who challenged himself over the first lockdown by taking on a charity challenge called ’18 Hours For 18 Years’ will receive a share of the £50,000 offered to the athletes and had this to say about receiving the funding:
“I do want to win everything. I really do want to go to the Commonwealth Games and win, I do want to be an Olympic champion. The Commonwealth Games is obviously really special, and I’ve known about it for a long time. There’s been Glasgow 2014, which was close to home, but now with it coming to Birmingham, it’s always been there in the back of my mind.
“The fact that I’ve got this scholarship is really beneficial because it means I’ll be able to use the funding to help me go out to more races than I could have otherwise gone to.
“In terms of that helping to leapfrog me into the Commonwealth Games, that extra racing experience could help me get to a position where I can start to think about qualifying for Birmingham, so it’s really important and I’m so grateful for having that funding behind me.”
Dixon, 18, is a 3 x British Youth Triathlon Champion, 2 x Super League Youth Triathlon Champion and is also one of only a few athletes to have won a Riga ETU European Cup at the age of just 16.
The Commonwealth Games 2022 are now only a mere 18-months away and this funding will allow Dixon to train on a full time basis leading into the games in his quest to gain selection. He will be looking to emulate the success of the Brownlee brothers over the years who took silver and gold in games back in 2014 in Glasgow.
