I won a FREE trip to the Rio 2016 Olympics and £2000

You might have seen my previous Tab article back in January about how I won £14,000 from competitions in just 5 months.

It’s now been twelve months and I’ve managed to win over £35,000 worth of prizes, including a trip to Hong Kong, £10,000 and a trip to the Rio 2016 Olympics (with £2000 spending money).

My brother and I at the Olympics

I won the prize from a competition in The Sun. Earlier this year, I had been buying the newspaper quite often in order to collect the tokens required to enter competitions to win a caravan or win £50,000 cash.

At the back of the newspaper, there’s a code that will give you a day’s free access to The Sun Perks website. It has exclusive members-only competitions and loads of freebies and discounts for various things such as cinema tickets or Pizza Express.

One day I was browsing the site and I came across the Rio competition. To enter you had to purchase a lottery ticket and type in the code on the website.

I found out that I’d won on the 18th May right before my French exam.

The Olympics was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I met Jessica Ennis-Hill, team GB Silver Hepthalon Medalist (I love her and totally fangirled, and she was so lovely). One of my goals of this trip was to meet one of my sporting heroes and I’m glad to say I managed to achieve it. She, along with 11 other Team GB medalists, were on our flight home. I was shaking so much when I went to ask for the photo because I was so starstruck.

I met Jessica Ennis Hill

We had matching Union Jack nails!

I watched the athletics live from the stadium and saw Jessica Ennis-Hill win Silver in the Heptathlon, and saw Usain Bolt and Mo Farah win Gold for the 100m and 10,000m respectively. The stadium atmosphere was electric. At the start of the 100m heats the stadium collectively went silent and you could hear a pin drop. The anticipation was crazy.

Doing the Mobot right after watching Farah win the 10,000m

Doing the Bolt pose after watching him win gold.

I also saw the male and female Team GB rowing teams win gold – it was such a surreal moment to witness.

The Rosinha Favela is the biggest Favela in South America, and I got the opportunity to visit it. Upon walking through this Favela I felt really humbled and grateful – the poverty that the residents live in and the crime they’re exposed to on a daily basis is heartbreaking (there were young boys walking around with AK47s).

The view from the top of Rochina Favela

I then visited the Christ the Redeemer monument and Sugarloaf Mountain. These are such big tourist attractions associated with Brazil and so they were top on my list of places to see.

Flying the flag for Team GB at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain

I’m definitely going to continue comping because it allows me to experience so many amazing things. And on my blog, I explain how to get started and offer my top tips to be successful in competitions.