Barry man says Welsh transplant athletes are denied chance to compete in World Games

Glamorgan Star news 07/12/2022

3 minutes read

Nick Topley competing in the British Transplant Games.

Barry man says Welsh transplant athletes are denied chance to compete in World Games – by MARCUS STEAD:

A retired academic from Barry who received a bone marrow transplant and went on to become a champion cyclist is calling on the Welsh Government and the Wales Transplant Team to ensure funding is made available for competitors to attend the World Transplant Games in Perth, Australia next April.

Professor Nick Topley, 61, who has lived in Barry since 1989, was first treated for aplastic anaemia in 2009, a condition whereby the body’s own bone marrow starts eating itself, and in December 2012 he received a successful transplant after his sister was found to be a suitable donor.

Nick, who is an Emeritus Professor at the Cardiff School of Medicine, has been a keen sportsman all his life, and played football, rugby, cricket and golf to a good standard into his 40s, but following his transplant, it was four-and-a-half years before he could properly exercise again.

In 2017, Nick discovered cycling when he saw his neighbour, Supt Colin Jones going for a bike ride and asked if he could join him.

That day, they cycled 5km and, in his own words, Nick became ‘a bit of an obsessive’ and nowadays he regularly rides in excess of 100km.

Two years later, Nick won the silver medal in the time trial for 50-59-year-olds at the British Transplant Games at Maindy velodrome in Cardiff, and at this year’s games, staged in Leeds in July, he competed in the 60-69-year-olds category where he won gold in the time trial and bronze in the road race.

In August, Nick was forced to pull out of the European Transplant and Dialysis Games in Oxford at short notice when an injury to his left elbow worsened.

Nick will eventually require surgery for his elbow injury, but a six-month rehabilitation period means he is having physiotherapy to try and delay the operation until after the World Transplant Games.

With preparations for the games well underway, Nick is concerned that many of Wales’s best medal hopes will be unable to travel.

Entry to the games costs £800 per person, while flights, accommodation and the transportation of equipment takes the overall cost to around £5,000.

Nick says that not enough is being done to ensure competitors will be able to travel to Perth: “I should make it clear that I don’t want to denigrate the work of the Wales Transplant Team volunteers, but there are issues with funding that need to be resolved.

“Put simply, we compete as the Wales Transplant Team at the British Transplant Games, but at the World Transplant Games we are part of the GB Transplant Team.

“The Welsh Government gives funding to the Wales Transplant Team, who prioritise the British Transplant Games, and a lot of athletes are effectively on their own when it comes to paying for the World Transplant Games.

“What’s really needed is a mechanism by which the governing bodies from all four constituent parts of the UK put funding into a pot on a pro rata basis to pay for the GB Transplant Team’s costs,” he said.

Nick added that he has concerns about the ethics of the fundraising methods suggested by the GB Transplant Team: “It’s been suggested that we set up a JustGiving page online for the Transplant Sport charity and claim back against it to fund our trips to Australia.

“I think that’s fundamentally morally wrong. If I fundraise for medical activities, I fundraise for medical charities, and that’s something I do a lot of, but there’s no way I’m going to ask my friends to pay for me or anybody else to go to Australia,” he said.

Nick considers himself fortunate that he does not need to worry about the costs, as he makes frequent visits to the area as a visiting professor at the University of Western Australia, and he can therefore time the trip to coincide with his academic work: “I consider myself very fortunate because it’s a happy coincidence that the World Transplant Games are taking place in a city thousands of miles away that I happen to visit frequently through work anyway, but this isn’t about me.

“I know of several transplant recipients in Wales who had a realistic chance of winning a medal but won’t be travelling to Australia next April.

“The fact of the matter is that lots of people are struggling to make ends meet at the moment, and lots of people simply can’t afford to spend £5,000 on travelling to the World Transplant Games.

“Our local Welsh Parliament member, Jane Hutt, is a personal friend of mine, and I have spoken to her about this. I’ll also be writing to Dawn Bowden, the cabinet member responsible for sport.

“It would be an enormous shame if these great athletes who have been through so much and train very hard are unable to take part,” he said.