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Mica McNeill and team mate Mica Moore had
appealed for 30,000 pounds ($40,425.00) to get to February's
Games in South Korea.
The tally on their gofundme.com page had reached 32,575 pounds
by Tuesday, six days after being launched, with 574 people
contributing.
McNeill said the 'overwhelming' support meant the pair, who won
the world junior title in January, could now compete on the
World Cup circuit, which they needed to do in order to qualify.
"We are powered by the people and it is them who will be pushing
us down the track," the 24-year-old, a silver medalist at the
2012 Youth Winter Olympics, told the BBC.
"I truly believe we will win an Olympic medal, whether it is in
this cycle or the next. I am committed to Pyeongchang and the
next Winter Olympics in Beijing and I am prepared to do what it
takes to get there."
Women's bobsleigh was added to the Olympic program at the 2002
Salt Lake City Games and Britain has yet to win a medal in it.
The men have won four medals over the years, including two-man
gold in 1964 and a four-man bronze in 1998.
"I know that bobsleigh is an expensive sport but I just am
really disappointed that it has come to this," McNeill had said
last week when launching her initiative to overcome the funding
problem.
"They (the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association) tried to
tell us it was because we weren't medal potential but I said,
'You're funding three men's crews.'
"I said, 'Why don't you just be honest and say you're not
funding us because there's no money?', and they said, 'Yes, it's
because there's no money -- if there was we'd be funding you'."
The BBSA said last week that it was 'actively seeking commercial
funding to further support our world class program and we will
continue to do so.'
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
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