MONMOUTH rower Emily Richards is looking for sponsorship to help her make it to the World Junior Championships later this year in Rio de Janeiro.

The 17 year old Monmouth Comprehensive School pupil is a gold medal-winning junior rowing champion and needs to raise more than £4,000 in total to allow her to travel out to Brazil to compete. The championships will be held on the course scheduled to host rowers in the 2016 Olympics at Rio.

Emily, who is a member of the Monmouth Rowing Club, has a number of titles to her name including a European junior team gold medal with Team GB and national women's junior under-16 individual 2,000m record holder.

Currently studying in her second year of sixth form, Emily has only been rowing for three years having started at 14, joining the school rowing club at the end of year 9. This is a year later than many others and Emily thinks it is this late start that has driven her to success so far - having to catch up with others.

She is on course to make the world championships which involves a gruelling schedule of events including training camps and time trials around the country and abroad.

The events cost money to enter, even before the consideration of accommodation and travel costs, and £4,000 is required to cover the whole process – all the build up and hopeful qualification along with the cost of the championships in Brazil.

So far, Emily has already been invited by GB Rowing to events in Boston, Lincolnshire, and France, and she is in a select group of 14-20 girls who are the top junior rowers in the country.

These will all be whittled down with only six spots available in Emily's discipline – skulling – with a double and a quad boat going out to Rio.

Emily said: "At the moment I'm training for February trials which is again up in Boston and is a two day event.

"The first day is a double skulls run with someone else, and the second day is a single, performing by myself, both over 5k."

"School and rowing tend to fit around each other. It's not too bad as I only have three subjects now so I have various free periods during the day that allow me to get the work done.

"Then I have my mornings and my evenings free to row. It's the way it tends to work, I get most of my school work done in the day and then row in the morning and evening.

"Every day apart from Friday I have two sessions, one in the morning, one in the evening. Saturday and Sunday it's two sessions in the morning with afternoons off. Friday is a day off rowing completely but it's also a full day of school!"

Emily currently has almost half of the £4,000 target though events will deplete that as she goes along. This spring sees camps and trials in places including Munich and Belgium, which will pit Emily against some of the top girls in Europe and provide crucial stepping stones towards her goal.

Last year's selection for the Coupe de la Jeunesse, the European championships, cost almost £1,000 alone, without all of the other training camps involved in the trials process.

The final trials for selection to GB's world junior rowing squad take place at Nottingham in July when Emily will hopefully hear the news that she'll be travelling to Rio in early August.

To get involved in sponsorship, contact Emily on 01594 836344 or email [email protected]">[email protected]. In return, companies will have their names added to kit and can have Emily attend company events.