Olympic bronze medallist Goldie Sayers has been throwing her first ever javelin again - the same one she would’ve used as a pupil at King’s School Ely - for a charity that supported her early athletics career.

The Ron Pickering Foundation awards over £40,000 in grants every year to Britain’s most talented athletes and this financial support helps them through their training.

It relies heavily on the London Marathon - which was due to take place yesterday (April 26) - for fundraising but the 2020 event was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

And like so many other charities, it is now trying to plug the gap to continue its work, so Goldie worked in partnership with the 2.6 Challenge to run 2.6 miles whilst throwing her javelin.

Goldie, who is also a trustee of The Ron Pickering Foundation, said: “We award over £40,000 in grants every year to around 200 young athletes to help them fulfil their potential in athletics. The grant might help them buy training equipment, help with coaching costs or travel to training...

“...Due to the postponement of the 2020 [London Marathon] event, we are desperate to plug the 40k gap in funds. It will of course be the Olympics year next year which makes this year’s grants even more important.”

She completed the challenge in open space close to her North London home and has so far raised over £1,500 through her Virgin Money Giving page.

Those who donated had their names put into a prize draw to win an Olympic t-shirt. Anyone who correctly guessed the number of throws it took for Goldie to run 2.6 miles could also win an Olympic jumper.

The athlete says she hadn’t thrown a javelin since retiring in 2016 and used her first ever javelin for the challenge. Now over 25 years old, she described the bent javelin as “banana shaped”.

Goldie was awarded the Olympic bronze medal in 2019 - 11 years after the Beijing Olympics - as the Russian Mariya Abakumova was stripped of the medal after it was discovered she had been taking steroids.

The Ron Pickering Foundation was formed in 1991 following the death of the respected BBC sports commentator and athletics coach.