Entries are now being accepted for the David Welch Student Sportswriter of the Year competition, with the three leader entrants and a guest being invited to attend the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards in London on February 27.
The competition is open to all students aged between 16 and 25 in full-time education at school, college or university.
All entrants must submit three pieces of writing no longer than 600 words each. They must be on the subject of sport and should take a wide-ranging form.
Specifically:
1. Report of a sporting event. This could include off-beat, investigative work as well as action. All sporting endeavour welcome from action and adventure to anything on the outer fringes that takes your fancy.
2. A blog, opinion, feature, interview on any subject either tightly or loosely relevant to sport.
3. A Sporting Top 10. Can be straightforward, such as the Top 10 Performances in Rio or something far more oblique and personal. It should be an interesting or provocative selection, each of the 10 justified in 50-70 word captions.
At least one of these three entries must be on the subject of women’s sport.
The entries must be emailed to entries@davidwelchcompetition.co.uk by Monday February 6, 2017.
The three sections of your entry must be included in the body of the email, and not added as attachments. Entries must begin with name, address, age, and contact number, and include details of educational establishment, a referee from the school/university and their contact details.
The winner will be announced at the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards gala dinner, and their efforts will be acknowledged in The Daily Telegraph and have one of their submissions published on The Telegraph website. They will also be offered a week’s unpaid work experience, culminating in the opportunity to attend a sports event to write their own report, accompanied by one of the newspaper’s journalists.
This is an Equal Opportunities award.
The David Welch Student Sportswriter award was launched in 2012 in memory of the former sports editor of The Daily Telegraph and SJA committee member. David was a huge fan of fine writing, who promoted the careers of many of sports media’s best-known journalists, including the Telegraph’s chief sports writer Paul Hayward and chief football writer Sam Wallace.
This competition is dedicated to uncovering the next generation of brilliant writers who understand that coverage of sport – both in its breadth and detail – can encompass everything from comedy to tragedy to trenchant opinion, colour and illuminating thought.
For more information and full terms and conditions, visit www.davidwelchcompetition.co.uk