My brother Tom was one of the most inspirational people who ever lived. Diagnosed with Parkinson's at the age of 26, he fought the disease with everything he had. He helped set up the charity "Cure Parkinson's", he raised huge amounts of money and he spoke about his condition all over the world. He gave people hope.
A couple of years ago, my daughters had a crazy idea (which Tom would have loved), and my daughter Emily has been documenting our adventure. I had a hunch that you might like to be part of it.
The story
Our Uncle Tom was very much a legend. He set up Cure Parkinson’s in 2005, undertook an epic sponsored walk around the British coastline, and was part of the Olympic torch relay for London 2012. He could also eat enormous quantities of potatoes, did an extremely good impression of a caterpillar, and could have beaten Forest Gump at table tennis.
When he left us some money to go on “adventure”, we knew we had something to do something spectacular: Uncle Tom-style. This is why we came up with The Olympic Mission.
The Olympic Mission or T.O.M. is the challenge to try out every Olympic sport from the
Tokyo games before the Paris 2024 opening ceremony. We (Megan, Beth, Emily, Katie and Charlie Boxall) get a lot of our passion for sport from Uncle Tom, who was one of those annoying all-rounders who could do anything brilliantly. While we don’t imagine we will perform these events to his standard – some of us are particularly nervous about the 10m dive – we are so excited to be celebrating the life of our uncle by doing something he would have loved.
The challenge began on the night of the closing ceremony. We have 46 events from 33 different sports to complete before 26th July 2024. We can assure you that there will be no half-measures in our efforts, which you can follow on our Instagram: @the_olympic_mission.
Every penny we raise will support a cause incredibly close to our family’s hearts. Thank you very much to anyone who supports T.O.M. We hope to do our uncle and Cure Parkinson’s proud by it!