100+ Scottish rugby fans are cycling to Rome – raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for motor neurone disease charity
His efforts, plus those of Rugby League great Kevin Sinfield – now a coach with the England team in Rugby Union, and whose former Leeds team-mate Rob Burrow, who has MND and with whom Weir established a close friendship – have had a huge impact in not just raising money for those suffering from the disease and for research into it, but also heightening awareness of the condition among the general public.
“We’re going to hope to get to £60,000,” he said, “But in the last four years, we’ve done more than £152,000.”“There’s some pretty nasty bumps along the way once you get to Grenoble, that’s going to be quite tough,” he said. “It's not incurable, it’s just been underfunded so that's really our mission, to raise awareness, raise support and just keep the fight going here.
That includes £4 million to establish a Discovery Network, which the foundation says “will provide the substantial funding and innovative environment needed to encourage breakthroughs in our understanding of MND that could lead to fundamentally new approaches to treating the disease.”