Ballinamallard para Olympian, Karen Cromie (20) has her fingers crossed for a dream double, that she makes the British team in Beijing this Summer, and that someone in Northern Ireland wins a cool £1 million pounds. She will know next month if she has secured a place, in the adaptive rowing events.
but, for now she has thrown her support behind the latest National Lottery campaign to raise almost £2.2 billion for the Olympic Games, and for the Paralympic Games in London in 2012 by launching a game that carries a top prize of £1 million.
Karen suffered a severe spinal cord injury in a fall at her home in Ballinamallard six years ago but the tragedy hasn't blunted her love of sport. She was introduced to wheelchair basketball during treatment at Belfast's Musgrave Hospital, and within a year she was in the Great Britain squad, and won silver medals in two World Cups.
Karen then turned to the new sport of adaptive rowing and, with Welshman James Roberts, she has competed in the 'trunk and arms' double sculls in two World Championships. Now they hope to go one better in Beijing in August.
This week Karen joined three UK gold medallists from the last Olympic Games in Athens for a special mission. They were - cyclist Chris Hoy, sprinter, Jason Gardener, rower Ed Coode and six-times World Swimming Champion, Mark Foster who is competing for Britain in his fifth Olympic Games this summer.
Their mission was to launch a new premium National Lottery Scratchcard that is specially geared for London 2012 funding.
Priced at £5, the Go for Gold Scratchcard is the 44th designated National Lottery Scratchcard in support of London 2012. It has now gone on sale at lottery retailers throughout the UK. There are 14 chances of winning on each ticket, with overall odds of around 1 in 4 of winning an instant cash prize, ranging from £5 to four top prizes of £1 million.
Karen fully backs Camelot's initiative: "I have received grants from Sport Northern Ireland through the National Lottery and I have found them invaluable. It would be terrific if someone from Northern Ireland really struck it lucky."
And if a £1 million Scratchcard win does come to the North, it will not be the first. Robin Green bought a £5 card near Carrickfergus four years ago and scratched his way to millionaire status.
Karen has been undergoing intense training for weeks at Caversham in the south east of England where Paralympic Games and Olympic Games hopefuls work out together.
Karen qualified with a degree in occupational therapy from Queen Margaret University in Edinbugh two years ago, but her commitment to sport has put job hunting on the backburner.
"That will have to wait until I see what happens about Beijing", she said.
The National Lottery will contribute £750 million of its £2.2 billion towards London 2012 from specially designated lottery games. All the Good Causes money raised from sales of these designated games will go towards funding the provision of facilities and supporting infrastructure for the 2012 Games.
