‘Far beyond sport’: Cyclist Mark Beaumont marks 20 years of charity work

Scottish cyclist Mark Beaumont is marking 20 years of helping young people through sport at a charity he said “has gone far beyond sport”.

Beaumont is celebrating 20 years as an ambassador for Winning Scotland in the wake of achieving another world record.

Guinness World Records recently confirmed that Beaumont and five other runners had completed the world’s highest marathon on the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile in February.

He is also known for holding the record for cycling round the world, completing his 18,000-mile route on September 18 2017, having taken 78 days and 14 hours.

The cyclist has been an ambassador for Winning Scotland since 2007.

Over the last two decades, it has reached 600,000 children and young people in education, social care, sport and employability, and worked in partnership with 400 organisations.

Beaumont said: “Sports are an interesting vehicle but Winning Scotland has gone far beyond sport.

“But it is still about teaching young people responsibilities and consequences and building that quiet confidence for young people to make their own decisions.

“There are undoubtedly challenges – from mobile phones to the global picture. But what can we do in the face of negativity?

“I love what Winning Scotland stand for. They are acknowledging the challenges, and they are not burying their heads in the sand. How can we create a different future? It is about being counted and giving young people the inner strength to be counted.

“What I care about is how do we give young people in Scotland the self-belief to figure out the best versions of themselves, not just to think that life is the sum total of what they know.

“Organisations like Winning Scotland have such an important role to play in allowing young people to think more broadly about who they are in society.

“It gives young people the toolkit to really understand their roles and responsibilities to build a sense of self-belief, and to work with young people to make sure they realise that the challenges that exist in the world are for them to think about as opposed for others to fix for them.”

Over the past 20 years Beaumont has contributed to many sporting charity events including Winning Scotland’s Champions in Schools programme in 2008.

This saw him join up with 200 other top athletes, including Olympic champion Shirley Robertson, rugby union legend Gregor Townsend, former Scotland footballer John Collins, and Olympic distance runner Eilish McColgan, to go into schools and share their stories with young people.

He also supported the Triple Crown fundraiser alongside Rob Wainwright, which saw 300 cyclists raising £1.6m for the My Name’s Doddie foundation.

Beaumont joined the Champions in Schools programme when he was aged 24 after his first solo trip around the world.

He said: “It was amazing. I’d just come back from my first expedition. I was in the public eye for the first time and suddenly, I was being asked to go and do these school talks, and as much as it was meant to be informative and inspiring for the kids, I learned a lot from it. We really got to know those kids which was wonderful. I hope they have gone on to do great things.

“What I really loved about Champions in Schools was it was a bunch of people who had actually done stuff. They weren’t just spinning a story. They had done it, they had delivered it. They had trained and I think there’s something wonderful about young people getting to realise that.

“True happiness comes from actually feeling like you are in the driving seat for what you do rather than waiting for the world to notice you. Winning Scotland speaks to all those things.”