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Unite Students help create the world’s biggest ‘virtual tandem’ to raise ¬£250k for Sport Relief – 17 February 2016

10 November 2016

As part of the company’s 25th anniversary celebrations Unite Students, the UK’s largest provider of student accommodation, are organising a large scale, mass participation cycling event in aid of Sport Relief 2016.

From 27 February – 11 March our staff, students and marathon static cycling world record holder Jamie McDonald will be cycling 250,000 miles and raising £250,000 under the campaign title of ‘The World’s Biggest ‘Virtual’ Tandem’. We want everyone to ‘take a seat’ and therefore the campaign will incorporate a series of events. These include a static bike challenge in 28 cities where we have student accommodation and the John O’Groats to Lands End (JOGLE) challenge.

The campaign will culminate with a large static bike challenge at Observation Point, Southbank, London on 11 March. This will be a final push to reach the miles and income target. 

Unite Students Chief Executive Mark Allan said: 

“Sport Relief is one of the UK’s best loved charities and we wanted to help our 46,000 students get behind it so we’ve organised a host of opportunities for them and other students. We want as many students across the UK as possible to get active and get involved to help us reach our £250,000 total which we’ve set.”

Jamie McDonald, adventurer, speaker, part-time superhero, commented: 

“I can’t wait to get cycling with the students, both on the John O’Groats to Land’s End ride and on the static bikes at their universities. It’s always a bit daunting to get on a bike again after the challenge that was the Guinness Record. But Sport Relief is such a good cause and students are so generous. It’s really important to me to help other people challenge themselves, see what they can do and help others.”

Cassie Emanuel, Fundraising Manager at Comic Relief added: 

“We are delighted that Unite Students are taking on such an amazing challenge for Sport Relief. We wish them the best of luck with their challenge and their fundraising efforts. They are helping to give extremely vulnerable and disadvantaged people in the UK and across the world’s poorest communities a helping hand to turn their lives around.  If anyone is inspired by Unite Student’s extraordinary efforts they can head to sportrelief.com to get involved.”

To find full details about the challenge go to: www.unite-students.com/sport-relief