Slovenian women’s World Cup team launches crowdfunding plea for physio

Given the ever-increasing expenses required to compete in alpine ski racing on the elite level, members of the sporting community have grown accustomed to crowdfunding requests from independent as well as national team athletes working their way up the development pipeline in both the U.S. and Canada. RallyMe is an official partner of the U.S. Ski Team, and every year the list of National Training Group (NTG) and development team members who turn to friends, family, and fans to help fund their dreams only seems to grow.

But the Slovenian women’s World Cup team, consisting of Ana Drev, Katarina Lavtar, Marusa Ferk, Vanka Brodnik, Ana Bucik, and Tina Robnik, have now taken to the crowdfunding platform MAKEACHAMP in order to raise 10,000 euros to support the cost of a physiotherapist for the 2015-16 season.

“Since the team’s budget doesn’t provide us (a) physical therapist, we have decided to collect money for this particular purpose,” the ladies posted in their plea for support. “We train, compete, and travel more than 200 days per year. Therefore, physical therapy would help us to achieve top results that all of us work really hard for.”

Physiotherapists on the World Cup circuit provide daily therapeutic support to athletes so they can perform at the highest levels of competition, but they also help to prevent injuries and aid athletes in their recovery from injuries.

Although Drev, ranked 23rd in the world in giant slalom, is the team’s top-performing skier in the standard disciplines, Lavtar will start in the top 30 in GS this year and Ferk, Brodnik, and Bucik are all ranked in the top 25 in the world in alpine combined heading into a season where the discipline victor will once again win a small globe.

Despite the team’s crowdfunding page being shared over 460 times on social media, they have only 14 supporters so far who have contributed a total of €350. MAKEACHAMP retains 12 percent of all sums raised that meet the listed goal or 15 percent of all sums raised that fail to meet the goal. The Slovenian women’s World Cup team has 30 days left to rally more than 9,600 euros.