Gina Ginelli, a veteran, motivational speaker and prolific charity fundraiser chats with TOPP.

Gina is an unstoppable force for good.Through her passion for sports, adventure and helping others she won Inspiration of the Year 2022 – Soldiering on Awards and Volunteer of the Year 2023. As well as volunteering for so many charities and organisations she is also an Ambassador for Purple Warriors, Woodys Lodge, The V word and Crawl 4 help. The below is the tip of the iceberg for Gina’s incredible life.Gina has always had a passion for sports and fitness. She competed for England in Alpine Skiing before she joined the army to serve her country in the Royal Signals. During her service she competed in many sports, and competed for the Army in the Army Ski Team for many years, training along side national teams such as USA, Switzerland and Austria. She also qualified as a BASI Ski Instructor and a Ski Tour leader.In 2007 Gina left the army and started her fundraising for charity. She entered a race across Death Valley, the toughest desert in the world, cycling up to 70 miles a day in incredible heat and climbing massive altitudes each day for a week. She raisied £4000 for the Mines Awareness Charity during the challenge.She continued doing countless races and challenges, until deciding to follow her passion and become a personal trainer, during this time working in the industry she set up Military Workout which became a thriving fitness business with classes across the country.With her passion for sports and the outdoors she joined a Dragon Boat team and within a year was training for the GB Premier women’s team. In 2010 she was selected for the team and won, 3 Gold medals at the European championships. In 2012 she was made the conditioning coach of the men’s team.Gina has raised hundreds of thousands for charities over the years through her races despite her injuries from service. All of these have been self funded so the maximum amount of money goes to the charity From cycling across the Nevada Desert to running the Hadrians Wall. She has competed many Ultras, Adventure Races, International Expeditions, half-marathons and hundreds of short races shorter races. “I am not fast now, due to my injuries but I can plod for miles”In 2020 she ran, cycled and kayaked 100 miles a week for a year in year completing 5200 miles for a local cancer charity to set up an Art Foundation in her brother’s name who had lost his life to cancer. She then continued her quest and ran races across the country for charity, wrote a book for charity called Military Memories, did 50 km a day for 30 days and even rode 100 miles on an indoor bike on Christmas Day to raise over £250,000 in two years for Veterans Charities.Gina is a force to be reckoned with and will continue to help the charities and organisations she volunteers for, as her passion shines through in everything she commits to.https://www.armchairadventurefestival.com/speakers?pgid=l1kx6tyo1-2998bb2e-f191-42d9-a354-fc647d14ef0fhttps://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/5200mileshttps://www.ssafa.org.uk/about-us/ssafa-stories/gina-allsop/