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Tour de 4 – a personal memory of an epic challenge

Many of our volunteers and staff enjoy a wide range of sporting activities outside of Sporting Memories and this is true of Gary Wadell, one of our Scottish Community Club Co-Oridnators, who took part in a special challenge to raise money for charities fighting against cancer. 

These activities often allow our team to bring some interesting sporting insights to their local clubs. Gary is a keen and well-respected Curler – you can read more about that here – but he also surprised us recently with a very impressive performance in the Tour de 4. This event was organised by Sir Chris Hoy to change the perception of living with stage 4 cancer and raise funds for UK cancer charities via Prostate Cancer UK. 

Gary (66) and his friend, Ross Taylor (62), aka The Dangerous Brothers (Go on, Google it, you know you want to) took on the challenge as a cause close to Gary’s heart. The duo garnered the name after some of their tennis doubles exploits at the local club. When they were good, they were excellent but when they were off form they were truly awful, according to Gary.

Gary (L) and Ross (R) looking every inch “The Dangerous Brothers”

Gary’s reflections 

Gary shared with us why he felt so compelled to support a cancer-relating charity, having had a diagnosis of his own a few years ago. 

“While I have never been diagnosed with prostate cancer, I do have my PSA checked twice a year. I was given an MRI scan in 2016 on my prostate and while the MRI didn’t show any cancer of the prostate it did pick up stage 2 cancer of one of my kidneys which I had then removed.  

“With no symptoms I feel I was very lucky and through the connection to the consultant who was a founder of Prostate Scotland that is why I chose them, as well as Sir Chris Hoy’s own diagnosis plus a mutual friend of Ross and me, like Chris Hoy, is living with stage 4 prostate cancer.” 

We then asked Gary for his highlight of taking part in the Tour de 4, but we certainly weren’t expecting this answer from him! 

“I puffed and?panted to the top of a particularly steep winding bit of road and saw this person with a small bike at a bus stop.  I thought I recognised the face but it took me a moment to realise it was Ellie Simmons. She smiled and said hello. I also saw her at the end and thought what an amazing achievement on such a small bike.? 

Gary offered us an insight into the challenge from his perspective, including some far-from ideal preparations and his joy at raising quite a large sum through his efforts. 

“I was definitely a bit ‘undercooked’ as my training was curtailed due to a cataract operation that didn’t do to plan and let’s not forget 10 days of little or no training while I was enjoying some warm weather in Croatia. 

“One of my best pals from university and her husband and brother were out supporting me at Milton of Campsie. It was nice to see a familiar face but to be fair the support you got along the route was amazing from people at the side of the road, to cars tooting their horns to people clapping out of cars as you passed them.?I feel quite proud that I made the decision to enter and really chuffed I managed to raise almost £2800.” 

And finally, we just had to ask: “Will you do it again?” 

“Never say never BUT I was blowing out my backside by the end!” 

Finally we asked Gary for his key message from the day and bearing in mind that the demographic of Sporting Memory Clubs is predominantly men of a certain age, it carries even more weight. It is simply 

“GET CHECKED”