Tru Wealth Road Race Series

Graham McKnight, managing director of Tru Wealth, said: ‘We are delighted to formalise our sponsorship and continue to demonstrate our commitment to scottishathletics by adding the road race series, this is in addition to our support of track and field via clubs and individual athletes.

Scotland international Annabel Simpson believes a bit more ‘noise’ around top races can stimulate even more interest in road running. The Fife AC athlete was asked along by scottishathletics when we prepared a photo-shoot launch of a new sponsorship for seven Scottish championship events with Tru Wealth. And there couldn’t have been a better advocate than Annabel, who was adamant that replicating the excitement of cross country or track and field is within reach. Glasgow-based financial advisors Tru Wealth have been strongly associated with athletics in Scotland in recent years – first with sponsorship of VP-Glasgow and then advertising with the governing body. Now that partnership with scottishathletics is being extended to take in the five-race Tru Wealth Road Race Championship Series (known in recent years as the Road Race GP) Tru Wealth will also support the Tru Wealth Young Athletes Road Races in Greenock in March and the Tru Wealth National 6 and 4-Stage Road Relays later that same month, when Senior teams compete at Livingston. It’s brilliant news once again for the sport with our current portfolio of sponsorships now complete for the time being and enabling us very much to improve the ‘event experience’ and aspects of media and communications around those events. ‘I think this is a great idea and I’m delighted to be one of the first athletes to hear about it,’ said Annabel, who has won Scotland vests in road, cross country and hills in recent years. ‘Road is my favourite surface for running and I think mud should be left behind in the winter! We get a fair bit of traction for cross country in Scotland and we get a fair bit of talk about cross country events like Falkirk. ‘But I really do believe bringing these races together via a sponsorship can help promote road running even more. ‘When you think how excited folk get for cross country medals or for their Senior or Age Groups podium moment in track and field – then I would love to see that happening at Scottish Road Race Champs. Hopefully this will help towards that and we can get more people running and more people running fast. Fellow Scotland international, Mike Christoforou, was just as enthusiastic. ‘I’ve raced a lot of these events in recent years – I think four out of five in the GP last year, missing only the marathon. I think the standard is pretty high already and we’ve seen that happen at Silverknowes for the 5k Champs. ‘It’s very tough to win a medal so if we can raise the level of competition then times will get faster for more athletes.’ The agreement with Tru Wealth will run for two years from the start of 2020 and is thus envisaged to take in no fewer than 14 Scottish championship events. ‘We are also excited to explore other avenues of supporting scottishathletics clubs by launching a ‘Cash for Clubs’ initiative, giving members that use our services an opportunity to earn cash back for their local club . ‘As official partners, we are pleased to be able to offer mortgage and financial planning advice to scottishathletics members and welcome any members to get in touch if they’d like to discuss this further.’ Mark Munro, chief executive of scottishathletics, has been chatting to Graham McKnight for some time. ‘Graham is well-known to many in the sport already at club level at VP-Glasgow, where he has been a strong supporter of the club,’ said Mark ‘Over the past year or so, we’ve developed a link via advertising within PB magazine and through stands at some of our championship events. Tru Wealth were keen to take that link even further and the two road relay events and five further championships within five road races gave us the opportunity to expand the partnership. ‘I think one of the real positives for us is that the Tru Wealth Rad Race Championship Series – which has been known as our Road Race GP in recent years – will now have a stronger identity within the sport and beyond. ‘I believe there is real opportunity for us to develop these Scottish championship races given the rise in performances by our elite and club level athletes.’ On the right road

Graham McKnight of Tru Wealth and Mark Munro shake hands on the new agreement PB 2020 | ISSUE 1 22