Jayco-AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco workforce proprietor and long-time biking philanthropist Gerry Ryan has been inducted into the Sport Australia Corridor of Fame for his influence and philanthropy to sport.
Ryan was named as a 2024 inductee alongside seven different new Corridor of Fame members together with browsing champion Mick Fanning, Olympic hurdler Sally Pearson, motorsport driver Mark Skaife.
As a Normal Member of the Sport Australia Corridor of Fame, Ryan joins an unique roll of honour that features lots of Australia’s largest sporting names, akin to Donald Bradman, Daybreak Fraser, Cathy Freeman and Rod Laver. The 2024 inductees can be honoured at a Gala Dinner, which returns from a four-year hiatus, in Melbourne, on November 18.
73-year-old Ryan is already a member of AusCycling’s Corridor of Fame and is a former president of Biking Australia. Biking in Australia wouldn’t be the identical and never as globally profitable with out Ryan’s continued monetary assist and enterprise acumen. He was listed 199th within the 2023 record of the 200 richest folks in Australia, with a internet value reportedly A$693 million ($460 million).
Ryan supported Kathy Watt’s quest for Olympic gold in 1992, then based and funded the Jayco Biking Workforce and helped the subsequent era of Australian cyclists by way of the Victorian Institute of Sport and Australian Institute of Sport programmes.
Ryan has owned and infrequently funded the GreenEdge Biking Workforce for greater than a decade, which is at present often called the lads’s Jayco AlUla workforce and the ladies’s Liv AlUla Jayco workforce since 2012. Each compete efficiently at WorldTour degree.
Different sports activities to learn from his funding embrace basketball, horse racing, Australian guidelines soccer and rugby league. Most just lately, Ryan has backed the brand new ProVelo Tremendous League Australian race sequence that can launch in early 2025. He usually travels to Europe to see his workforce in motion on the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. Ryan’s enterprise pursuits embrace the caravan firm Jayco Australia, the theatrical firm World Creatures, and possession of wineries and resorts.
“I’m nonetheless coming to phrases with being chosen,” Ryan mentioned modestly.
“You by no means dream of receiving such an honour however I’m so happy, not only for me however for the individuals who have been round me to assist me obtain this. My household, mates and work colleagues.
“I’m actually going to be very proud to be in that room and searching round on the people who find themselves additionally accepting awards. You’ve gotten a imaginative and prescient, you’ve gotten a dream, however actually I’ve surpassed what I believed rising up as a boy that I might ever obtain.”