I'm proud to be riding The Tour 21 this year for Cure Leukaemia, the Official Charity Partner of the Tour de France in the UK.
Our aim, as a team, is to raise £1,000,000 for the charity to give blood cancer patients across the UK access to potentially life-saving clinical trials.
Gary Apps
Director - My Fish Company
Follow Gary's progress
NBC Sports updates on the Tour 21
The Aim
A team of 25 amateur cyclists will begin riding the full 21 stages of the 2021 Tour de France route.
The Tour 21, which takes place from Saturday 19th June – Sunday 11th July, aims to raise in excess of £1,000,000 for national blood cancer charity, Cure Leukaemia, and the team are halfway to their fundraising total after recently surpassing £500,000.
Watch this video to see how the team is feeling and preparing with '100 days to go'.
How you can help
Gary needs to raise £30,000, so let's help him reach his target by donating and sharing Gary's story on his Just Giving Page.
View ongoing preparation and the current donation total.
Plus, please share his story with friends and family and across all social media platforms.
About Cure Leukaemia
Founded in 2003 by Professor Charlie Craddock CBE and patients Graham Silk and Michael Woolley, Cure Leukaemia helps to bring pioneering drug and transplant treatments to blood cancer patients across the United Kingdom. The charity funds the Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) network comprising 12 blood cancer centres across the UK.
As a result, the specialist research nurses funded at these centres allow clinical trials of pioneering and potentially life-saving treatments for blood cancer to run, giving patients from a catchment area of over 20 million access to these new therapies. Cure Leukaemia also funds the TAP network’s Hub based at the internationally renowned Centre for Clinical Haematology at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham to co-ordinate and accelerate the delivery and assessment of these pioneering trials.
Without the expert research nurses to ensure patients are constantly monitored and cared for; these trials would not run, and patients would miss the opportunity to access potentially life-saving therapies. The aim of Cure Leukaemia is to raise money to fund more research nurses and provide world-class treatment for its patients. Only by funding more nurses in more hospitals, can more blood cancer patients benefit from access to potentially life-saving treatment.
In 2017 Cure Leukaemia raised an additional £1m to help fully fund the expansion of the Centre for Clinical Haematology. The transformational £3.4m project doubled the Centre’s capacity for blood cancer patients treated, clinical trials opened, and research nurses employed. Capacity for an additional 75 jobs has been created, and it has allowed stem cell transplants to be performed as an outpatient for the first time.
Also in 2017, Cure Leukaemia was selected to be one of Deutsche Bank’s two UK Charities of the Year for 2018 and 2019, a partnership that has raised £2m and made its nationwide transition possible.