We speak to a man who has used his wealth to help some of Britain’s top athletes on their way to success
About four years ago, Barry Wells thought his days of financing athletes were over. Since 2008, the millionaire philanthropist has given Katharina Johnson-Thompson, Jess Ennis-Hill and fellow Brits a total of nearly £2m to boost their medal chances at major championships.
As the epidemic unfolded, he focused his efforts on himself Box4 Kids Instead, everything changed when he received a phone call from Jenny Meadows, one of the athletes he was helping.
“I almost stopped funding individual athletes unless someone incredible took up the woodwork,” Wells recalls. “But Jenny and her husband Trevor told me about a young athlete called Keely and the times he used to run.
“I looked at what he was doing and thought, ‘This is an exceptional man.’ I found he had a decent cross country background but also this basic speed. I didn’t want to go back to funding athletes, but Keeley seemed pretty special.”
Keely Hodgkinson and Barry Wells
Wells made his fortune building and selling businesses, and as a huge athletics fanatic and former athlete himself, he has been on a mission to help British athletes with funding for the past 16 years.
In March 2020, just days before the UK’s first Covid lockdown, I visited Wells at his offices in Lancaster and in a subsequent speech he was called “the most generous man in British athletics”. Now, with the Paris Olympics in full swing, I tracked him down at the Stade de France a few days after Hodgkinson won Olympic gold to ask him how he came to support the 800m star.
“We checked her social media and her background,” he recalls, “and she was this well-behaved girl who was focused on being an athlete. I really got on with him and I liked his mom and dad. So I got on board and asked what I could do.’
Wales don’t just throw money at athletes. “I need to know their plan,” he says.
With Ennis-Hill it helped with access to physiotherapy and extra javelin training from Mick Hill. For Hodgkinson, he had to leave during the pandemic to train in warm weather, in addition to helping take Painter to the holding camp ahead of the Tokyo Games.
Keeley Hodgkinson celebrates with Trevor Pinter (Getty)
The investment soon paid off as he won Olympic silver in Tokyo. “Since then, I don’t really need to help him,” Wells says, “because he makes enough money on his own.”
Hodgkinson wasn’t a one-off either. Wales has helped Molly Codery in recent months, although the British pole vault record holder had a nightmare in Paris as she failed to qualify for the final.
Like Hodgkinson, Wells made an exception for Codery, but on this occasion because he has a soft spot for his event. His grandfather was Ernest Latimer Stones, the pole vault world record holder in the 1880s, so when he bumped into Codery’s coach, Scott Simpson, in a hotel elevator one day, he agreed to help with his global travels. to become the #1 pole vaulter in the world.
Amusingly, though, Wells feels that Coder is often embarrassed to ask him to pay for flight upgrades so he can stretch his legs on long trips because of the considerable expense involved.
Rising star Codery will be hoping for more success at next year’s World Championships in Tokyo. Wales still had plenty to cheer about in Paris, however, as their self-confessed favorite athlete, Johnson-Thompson, won her first Olympic medal in heptathlon silver.
Molly Coderre (Getty)
His favoritism is due to the fact that he first met KJT in 2008 when he was just 15 years old and he started funding him to help with his training. Since then, the two have become close friends, and Johnson-Thompson has been a patron of the Barrie Wells Trust since 2012.
In appreciation of all the help shown to him, the heptathlon star returned the millionaire in spades, becoming his permanent host. Box4 Kids events.
That’s the size of the scheme, with 24 registered last weekend Box4Kids With events held across the country, it has provided brilliant experiences for around 20,000 seriously or terminally ill children, from the London Diamond League to football matches at Anfield; Home of Wales and KJT’s beloved Liverpool FC.
Wells enjoys seeing his athletes realize the support he has given them from the start. He appreciated, for example, Hodgkinson pausing on his lap of honor at the Stade de France to hug him in the stands while his mother Rachel hosted; Box4Kids events at Old Trafford, certainly no-go area for the die-hard Liverpool fan.
“Some athletes see it as a ‘transactional relationship,'” Wells says, “which is a little sad to see.” When their funding ends, I don’t hear from them anymore. But with others they stay in touch.
“Die Green is a great example. At London 2012, he was fourth in the steeplechase and relay, and his funding ran out, but he still dedicates about four weekends a year to hosting. Box4Kidswhich is really nice.”
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